Are you ready for International Print Day? Started for the first time last year, this International Print Day aims to create a global 24-hour phenomenon in which social media highlights the creativity, importance, and power of print and paper. During the inaugural celebration last year, 8,683 Tweets were delivered to 23,023,968 timelines with 1,271 contributors. That’s a lot of print related information shared around the world!
Deborah Corn, Intergalactic Ambassador to The Printerverse at PrintMediaCentr.com, is the driving force behind International Print Day. We chatted about this year’s efforts and what we hope printers will gain from participating in the movement.
PIA: We love this year’s theme for International Print Day. How did #PrintNow come about, and how do you think this idea relates to the current state of the industry?
Deborah: Our 2015 theme was crowd sourced during our weekly #PrintChat and Jonathan McGrew (@JEMcGrew) submitted #PrintNOW. To me, #PrintNOW embodies the current state of the industry and all of the amazing advances to marketing and communication we are creating and implementing. Equally, #PrintNOW can be used as a call to action. Luckily the chatters agreed and, voilà, our theme was born!
PIA: A strong call to action is definitely important in a movement such as this.
International Print Day intertwines a lot with social media. How important is it for printers to embrace social media marketing in their business plans?
Deborah: Communication professionals must understand how to communicate with customers and prospects how and where they want to communicate. I am Gen-X, so maybe I will have some tolerance when I visit a printer’s site that doesn’t use social, but I am thinking “old;” I am thinking “not up on technology;” and I am thinking “how can they help me with my marketing when they don’t embrace some major channels on the multi-channel highway?”
PIA: Definitely. Anyone in any industry should always be thinking about where their audience is and how they can best reach them.
Besides getting involved in an awesome social media campaign, what are some other advantages for those who get in on the #PrintNow fun?
Deborah: Creating Connection. #IPD15 is an opportunity for everyone to tell the world what they do, connect and engage with the community on a global scale, grow their audience and create thought leadership on subjects that are relevant to customers, prospects and #PrintNOW. There are long-term benefits of reach and awareness for a few hours of effort (and fun!) helping print trend the planet on October 14th.
PIA: It sounds like there are lots of great benefits to joining the International Print Day movement. So, what’s your favorite part?
Deborah: Creating Community. We all live in bubbles. Sometimes they collide, and sometimes they just float around and never interact. #IPD15 is an opportunity for everyone—no matter where they are—to see who is out there, connect, and understand that we are all in this together. That is the big picture of the event. Social media was chosen to help bring that ideal to life because there are no barriers – except time zones. But even then, a search of the #IPD15 stream will allow everyone to see what was shared while they were sleeping.
There you have it! What do you love about print? What’s your go-to print secret? What kinds of cool print products has your company come up with? We want to know! Find out how to participate in #IPD15 by visiting www.internationalprintday.org. Get to know other people and help create an online community of print enthusiasts during International Print Day on October 14, 2015!