One of the things I enjoy the most about writing for creative entrepreneurs is hearing back from startups who are making it work. The founder of a Kiwi design company mailed me at the tail end of last year, inspired by something I had said on a Radio New Zealand show. She had a great website and beautifully made products but was feeling a little daunted by the next step - marketing her creations. My advice was, "Don't get overwhelmed by the marketing thing. All you need to do is think of people who would love your designs, and then tell them about in your own words." Her solution was inspired, call the whole process 'Funketing' instead. One of the things I enjoy the most about writing for creative entrepreneurs is hearing back from startups who are making it work. The founder of a Kiwi design company mailed me at the tail end of last year, inspired by something I had said on a Radio New Zealand show. She had a great website and beautifully made products but was feeling a little daunted by the next step - marketing her creations. My advice was, "Don't get overwhelmed by the marketing thing. All you need to do is think of people who would love your designs, and then tell them about in your own words." Her solution was inspired, call the whole process 'Funketing' instead.I am delighted to report that her Funketing Campaign seems to have been a great success, and the website contains glowing testimonials from customers all over the world. The biggest danger to any start-up is obscurity, especially for emerging designers without a Funketing budget or even cash-flow. I still recommend using some of the tried and tested routes of making a name for yourself, such as developing relationships with relevant local magazines, communities & media outlets. You can also engage with a global audience without having to invest a lot of time or money by using the new wave of easy publishing, networking & micro-blogging tools and syndication services.

Creative organisations may be better off focussing their Funketing efforts in new syndicated media channels, rather building a blog or website. In Brandstreaming: What Is It & Who's Doing It? Richard MacManus from Readwriteweb explains how content consumption outside of websites is on the rise:

"To back up its case for brands using lifestreaming tools, Pheedo points to a recent Universal McCann report stating that content consumption outside of websites has increased 153% in the last 9 months. Overall, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher's site - through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices."

Twitter is still popular and growing as a micro-blogging tool, and even though it has suffered recently from server outages it has won at MIT TR35 Award for 2008. My favourite Twitter tool is Twhirl for managing multiple accounts, I use Twitterfeed to add automated RSS content from my site to my tweets, and through Easytweets I can pre-write tweets to publish on a future date.

With a TV show to produce each week I don't have the time right now to write blogs for my site. Instead we have been using a Posterous channel to publish photos, audio pods, and video clips of 'Rawports' from the g33k show studios, made on a Nokia 6121 phone. To set up your own Posterous blog you simply email post@posterous.com, and then attachments emailed to this address will be formatted and published on your blog.

We have been sending pictures, audio and video files directly from our phone or via email, and in seconds they appear in neat media players on the g33k show's posterous channel. I have also used Posterous to syndicate content into my personal blog and twitter feeds, using the 'autopost to everywhere' function. This works with the main blogging, microblogging and digital media hosting services, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress, Movable Type, Typepad, Livejournal and Xanga. A new tool that will prove useful to Gen Y & social network butterflies is Ping.fm that can send a message to all of your social networks automatically.

My final tool for a beginners Funketing pack is an online merchandise service called Zazzle. It has some great blank tshirt designs, shoes, and now skateboards that you can print your artwork or logo on. You can then sell your own label merchandise with your designs showcased at the Zazzle store, and embedded into your own website with a Zazzle widget.

My best advice to creative Funketeers is to publish regularly, keep your voice authentic, and above all enjoy yourself!

Read more MsBehaviour Files

As well as being TBI's strategist & columnist, MsBehaviour is Producer & Presenter of the g33k show, Fridays, 8 pm on Alt TV. She is also Managing Directrix of Mohawk Media, which produces internet TV, 3D Animation & Machinima.

04/09/08