“T-shirts are the business cards of our time, at least in San Francisco,” remarked Danish entrepreneur Mikkel Svane in a recent talk about his successful startup Zendesk.  He was referring to his company’s creative use of t-shirts imprinted with customer complaints that were used as part of the company’s apology for an unpopular and unexpected rate increase.

These slightly outrageous shirts received a lot of attention on social media, and they served as a visual representation of the message that Zendesk was trying to convey. If the company had just said “I’m sorry” without the t-shirts, there wouldn’t have been a photo op that could go viral.

Hopefully you don’t have anything to apologize for, but I’d like to make a case for using t-shirts to help create a memorable image to post on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on your web site. The Monroe Street Chocolate Walk t-shirt in the above photo could be considered a failed effort, because we ordered two dozen and only sold a handful. But without the shirt, the image of me handing a check to a lion would not have told the whole story at a glance. (And you’ll note that we didn’t put a date on the shirt, so hopefully we’ll sell more at next year’s event.)

You can also use t-shirts as gifts to your customers, in the hope that they will wear them in public and even better post a photo featuring the shirt (this is most likely to happen if you come up with a clever or eye-catching design). You might even offer a reward for customers posting selfies wearing your shop’s shirt.  And as a marketing expert told me, even if those who don’t wear the shirt will think of your business whenever they see it in their drawer.

We don’t require our staff to wear matching uniforms at work, but for special events we do usually have a custom t-shirt made. We look forward to hosting a staff reunion this summer to celebrate the store’s 40th anniversary, and shirts in honor of the occasion are in the works. They’ll make a nice souvenir of the occasion (everyone loves “swag”), and we look forward to having a past and present group photo taken that we can post in all our social media.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder