Maeve EggersDecember 22, 2011

Graham Withers Clothing Company and Social Media

Graham Withers is a Brooklyn-based men’s clothing company specializing in hand-crafted neckties, bowties and pocket squares. In the four years since co-founders Dave Roma and Paul Hanan started the company, they have enjoyed several successes that Dave attributes largely to social media. “Since developing our online presence, we’ve been getting a lot more press and write-ups from bloggers as well as wholesale inquiries from retailers.”

Graham Withers has an active presence on many platforms and a small, engaged audience that they are looking to expand.

BackgroundDave and Paul started the company in early 2008, initially handmaking ties during non-business hours in a whipped cream factory on Long Island. Paul, who works at the family-owned whipped cream factory, and Dave, who works as a web developer at a NYC ad agency, are longtime skateboarding buddies. Their involvement in the New York skateboarding community has played a large role in the development of Graham Withers.

Skaters were the duo’s initial market. Graham Withers began by selling their ties to friends, and later at local markets and events in Brooklyn. Several skaters wore Graham Withers ties in skateboarding videos and people outside of Paul and Dave’s circle started to take notice, leaving comments on video posts and photos asking where they could get Graham Withers ties.

Once they noticed a growing demand, Dave created a Graham Withers website where people could order merchandise. The website links to the Graham Withers Tumblr blog where Dave and Paul post regularly.

By 2010, demand for Graham Withers products exceeded the supply Dave and Paul could produce themselves. They found a NYC manufacturer, an industry veteran who works with some big names in the men’s fashion industry, to take over producing their line.

Social Media Marketing

Because of the skateboarding scene’s overlap with the art, music and fashion industries, Paul and Dave already knew photographers and filmmakers happy to help produce marketing content and bloggers eager to disseminate it.

Friend, fellow skateboarder and filmmaker Richard Quintero shot and produced many videos for Graham Withers which have been successful in terms of social sharing, including a commercial for their 2011 Summer line. Several blogs reposted the commercial including Guiness.com (one guy in the video is shown briefly drinking a Guinness). While they post their videos on their website and across the social media platforms they use, Dave and Paul have decided against creating a YouTube brand page. “It’s important to us that the people that work with us also benefit from the relationship,” Dave explains, “so we are trying to push people to our website but also to Richard Quintero’s Vimeo page.”

The partners consider Graham Withers a lifestyle brand and they’ve been using social media mainly to build their brand image. Dave maintains the Graham Withers Facebook page and Paul handles the Twitter account where they post about things that interest them as well as new product information. They are active on Instagram, sharing photos of skateboarders, other menswear brands they like, and places of interest in Brooklyn.

Graham Withers consider Twitter and Tumblr to be the most successful platforms for them, with Twitter followers doubling in the last 12 months and Tumblr followers, reblogs and interactions increasing every day. Facebook has been the least beneficial in terms of user interaction, but Graham Withers feels it is an important platform for developing the brand’s personality. “Facebook allows us to connect to our personal Facebook pages which increases our exposure, and features like photo albums cultivate the brands image.” They continue to regularly update content on the Graham Withers Facebook page as well as use their personal Facebook pages to post updates about Graham Withers.

How can Graham Withers use social media to increase brand awareness and engagement? Should they concentrate efforts on increasing user engagement on Facebook or focus on continuing to grow the platforms that have already proven successful for them? Should different platforms be used to accomplish different brand and marketing goals?

Websitehttp://www.grahamwithersclothing.com/

Bloghttp://grahamwithers.tumblr.com/

Videoshttp://www.grahamwithersclothing.com/video.php http://vimeo.com/richardquintero

Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/GrahamWithersClothing

Twitterhttp://twitter.com/GrahamWithers