It’s great to see the print industry slowly start to embrace popular social media sites like twitter. I want to take a look at how these companies are using twitter and possibly discuss how they could use it better.

Here are my top 2 printers on twitter:

VPG_Printing – “Owner of a Printing & Graphics CO. in Encinitas, CA. Graphics designer by trade.”

Laura Beulke of Vertical Printing has nearly mastered the art of tweeting on both a business and personal level. She has been tweeting for over 6 months now and found that she could generate quite a buzz by offering freebies to her followers. Laura has figured out that using twitter is less about her company and more about her audience. She has even received referrals from people that aren’t even clients because of her activity on twitter.
(Special Offer: The seventh person to contact Vertical Printing and mention Magicomm will get $50.00 of FREE Printing)

BlueCoast – “Print quality paper print projects, and save your budget.”

BlueCost has a very realistic understanding of Twitter and how they should be using it. Their Relationship Manager told me “People use twitter not to hear what the company is doing, but rather to take something beneficial for themselves“. Their twitter account is reinforced by a well thought out blog with some very insightful posts.

Other printers on Twitter

• TampaPrinter
• hotcards
• ColonialColour
• intouchlabels
• risoprinter
• FosterPrinting
• swiftprint

So how should printers be using twitter for their business?
First lets look at my top 2 and see what they are doing right.

1. They are not pushing their services on subscribers
2. They are maintaining a good ratio of subscribers to subscriptions
3. They are responding to feedback and questions from other twitterers
4. They are providing value to the community (freebies or quality blog posts)
5. They are keeping it personal

I think Blue Host summed it up best in their response to my inquiry when they replied:
“The ones that enter into it with selfish motivation usually gain nothing.”

So what about the larger print providers?

I hold them to the same standards I hold everyone else. That said, I am curious about your thoughts on adobepr, xeroxcorp, xmpie and kodakidigprint. Adobe and Xmpie are still new to the Twitter game but could turn in to very fruitful accounts. Kodak rolled out kodakidigprint as part of a whole social media initiative that included a number of other Kodak employees joining twitter under Kodak branded accounts. All of these accounts have only been created within the last couple of months so there is still a lot of time for growth. (Which companies do you think are doing the best job?)

How else can Twitter help printers?

Twitter is a great way to keep up on hot topics within the industry. It’s also a great way to become the hot topic in your industry. Twitter gives you the exposure and the audience.

Some resourceful profiles out there are:

• PrintPlanet
• printceoblog
• whattheythink
• printworkers

So why should I, as a printer, join twitter?

Between the business opportunities and resources available, the question becomes why shouldn’t you join twitter. You should only jump on the bandwagon if you are willing to commit to it. A failed account looks a lot worse than no account. However if you follow the 5 simple steps listed above, their is no reason why you shouldn’t be up on my top 2.

If you are a printer on twitter and not on this list please feel free to comment below.

This should cause all printers to sit up and take notice…NOW

If you haven’t seen this yet, check in out (HP-MySpace Press Release ). This is huge for several reasons. HP is going direct to provide their services to an organization by providing them with the technology and support to produce their photos with an web-to-print application. A very strong move into facilities management by HP. Certainly will cause stress for their customers by taking the type of business away from the same printers that purchased their equipment.

Additionally, this illustrates that HP “gets it” by recognizing the power of these type of social networking sites. In the press release they indicate that “over 5 million bands on MySpace” and they are trying to tap directly into their marketing engine. Another smart move by HP and, if they manage it right, this will provide for an extremely profitable revenue stream for them for many years to come. These social media sites (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.) are increasingly being used as marketing tools by small and large companies alike. The next most natural move is to allow them to upload their brochures to these web sites and if the client wants a printed version, they get it at the press of a button. Or, they can download the PDF to their local workstation. Interesting concept linking social media with web-to-print.  Hmmmmmmmmmmm…the mind can wander all over the place with the possibilities.

How will the local printers play in this workflow evolution? Will they be able to? Only time will tell, but watch for further moves by the traditional print vendors establishing relationships with these type of web communities. Mark my words, there are more to come and it will happen faster then you think.

“See” Ya Later,

Rick Littrell

Magicomm, LLC