Printers are gearing up for this year’s International Print Day (IPD) on October 14, hoping to raise the medium’s profile in an increasingly digital world.

The celebration of all things print ironically takes place entirely on social media, with the stated objective to get #PrintNow trending so it is noticed by tech savvy consumers.

Dolphinworx chief executive Stephanie Gaddin, a big proponent of the event in Australia, encourages printers to share the hashtag with pro-print messages on their social media accounts.

“IPD is, at its core a celebration of print, the passion of the industry, and our rallying cry to stand together and show the world everything that we love about our industry,” she says.

“The purpose [of using social media] is to push print, printing and the print industry to the front of mind for communities outside of our industry in a positive and deliberate manner.”

[Related: IPD14 highlights]

Gaddin says some of the activities in Australia on the day include:

• Streaming, retweeting, liking and sharing content from printers across Australia in the official IPD feeds and the Australian specific feeds
• Sharing Australian content sourced from the VoPP campaign highlighting the sustainability of Print
• A breakfast in Melbourne with guest Kellie Northwood and other industry experts who will share their own love of print and what IPD means to them. Attendees will have the opportunity to spruik themselves and their businesses for the official IPD feed.
• An open international webinar discussion around the theme of #PrintNow.

“You can also create your own events, inviting clients through to your shop and encouraging them to share the work you have done for them through their own social media feeds,” Gaddin says.

“If the social media thing is not for you, you can also participate by wishing your clients a Happy International Print day in person, or on the phone when you speak to them.”

“If you want to throw a party for your staff, and invite key clients, then do so. If you want to dress up for the day as key print figures throughout history then do so.

“The day is yours, make it your own. The only request from the organisers is that you share your celebration on social media, so that we can achieve our goal of making print trend the planet.”

Last year organisers claimed 1271 participants shared 8683 #IPD14 tweets, and posted content that reached more than 23 million Facebook walls over the 24 hour event, while #PrintChat appeared 1266 times on almost six million walls.

A ProPrint poll found 64 per cent of respondents had never head of IPD and those who had were evenly divided between feeling it was a great idea or a waste of time.

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