“Stick It To The Man: Choice Shirts, California Cosmetics, Technomic Asia”

As the rest of the blogosphere debates Enterprise marketing, we at socialTNT want to bring it back to the people. Big corporations meet behind closed doors to figure out social media, while thousands of people are trying out new ideas every day. This week, socialTNT is gonna “Stick It To The Man” by showcasing small businesses and individuals experimenting with new media as promotional tools.

Choice Shirts is a t-shirt site where visitors can browse, purchase and create graphic t-shirts. I know, there a literally tons of online t-shirt purveyors, but how many of them use Twitter? Choice sends out daily special tweets with discount information. There are only 20-something followers right now, but this could increase if they promoted their Twitter-stream on the site.

California Cosmetics, mentioned in my post on rethinking online video strategy, is the product of a 20 year old girl named Lauren, a certified cosmetologist working her way through college. She uses YouTube to give video tutorials on achieving certain looks. Since starting on October 29th of this year, Lauren has more than 570 subscribers and is the 16th most subscribed director in the “guru” channel. Many of her posts come from requests and questions she receives from her fan-base. By listing upcoming posts, Lauren keeps her viewers coming back.

Technomic Asia is a strategic consulting firm for businesses moving into the Asian market. The firm has approximately 25 employees. Their (mostly) weekly podcast includes tips for executives visiting China or special news relevant to companies doing business in that market. According to feedburner, their podcast has about 550 subscribers. With most episodes rack up to 2000 downloads, Technomic Asia places itself in a good position to establish thought leadership.

By looking at these three examples, how can you reach your customers directly and in real time? Do you have special knowledge or skills that you can offer your customers? What’s holding you back!

How are you using social media to promote your small business? I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email or hit me up on Twitter. We will be showcasing unique angles all week!

[Above photo by Mika Hiironneimi under Creative Commons]

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Mike says:

December 12, 2007 at 7:13 am

Thanks for mentioning Technomic Asia (a client of mine). The podcast has been great, as you mentioned, for establishing thought-leadership, but the benefits go far beyond that.

Technomic Asia, in addition to working with reporters at BusinessWeek, WSJ, etc., the podcast gives Kent and Steve (the leaders of the firm) a direct voice to publish what they want, when they want.

And the new-media action in podcasting is giving me great material to work with on the traditional media relations front. Reporters often love to hear insight and ideas straight from the horse’s mouth, and pointing them to a specific podcast episode saves me valuable words in my striving-to-be-succinct pitches.

Chris Lynn says:

December 12, 2007 at 11:04 am

Hey Mike:

Thanks for your additions. I think you hit on a key point: social media allows individuals and small biz the ability to have their own voice to publish what they want, when they want.

Lauren (CaliforniaCosmetics) says:

December 12, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Thanks Chris for highlighting my youtube and my efforts in this blog, i really appreciate it and thanks for writing me and telling me about it! I’ve highlighted your website on a blog in return and on my channel info. Thanks again, it seems you are doing just as successfully in your efforts!!