Martha Stewart’s multimedia empire includes TV shows, magazines, digital endeavors, and licensed merchandise. “Media leads, merchandise follows,” said Stewart, speaking at the BlogHer convention in New York City last month. “The consumer reads our blogs or wants the dress she sees in the magazine. So we provide it. It’s all connected.”
Her lifestyle business employs 600 workers and everything she produces is designed in-house. “We have a productive environment and work long hours.” Her staff have introduced more than 60,000 products, with 8,500 pieces currently on sale at Macy’s, Home Depot, Michaels, and independent craft stores. “Our craft items may be little [in the number of] SKUs [when compared to the larger kitchen appliances], but they are a powerful symbol of our brand and what we are interested in,” she says.
Stewart Tweets
Social media is a key area of interest for Stewart. “I am pretty proud of my involvement with technology. I was part of the ‘early adopters society’ and owned an IBM computer in 1982.” She favors Twitter ?(she is also an investor) over Facebook as a way to connect with her audience. “Twitter gets the message out instantly.”
That said, Stewart realizes that Twitter serves mainly as a way to reaffirm fan connections rather than attract new fans. “I have been told that my 2.5 million followers is a limited audience. My messages are going to the same food bank statistically, so it’s not really fabulous [in terms of reach].”
Stewart recommends Twitter as a source for research and information. “I was with this food company [discussing a possible food deal] and wanted to know if [one option was more sellable] than another. So we tweeted it [to my followers] and got fabulous answers right there with the CEOs [of this food company] who have never tweeted before.”
PBS is airing Stewart’s latest show, Martha Stewart’s Cooking School, which is an outgrowth of a book series. “It’s all about how-to. How to cook lamb, fry an egg. We hope to do other things, [such as] how to garden.” The 26-show series launches October 6.
Source: Martha?Stewart Living Onmimedia, Katherine Nash, VP Corporate Communications and Investor Relations, 601 W. 26th St., 9th Fl., New York, NY 10001; 212-827-8722; knash@marthastewart.com; www.marthastewart.com.
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