U.P. company utilizes Facebook to expand business

You may have missed it on your timeline, but Facebook is turning ten years old Tuesday.

One Upper Peninsula company definitely took note, crediting the social media platform for its rapid growth.

Yooper Shirts was founded in 2009 as an online only company.  But, after promoting shirts and designs through Facebook, the company saw a significant surge in sales.

Owner Jeremy Symons believes the worldwide social network helped build the Yooper Shirts brand.

Yooper Shirts is also featured in today’s ABC10 UP Blog –  Read more…

“Facebook was one of the first things I had to do, I didn’t really have enough money to promote myself and spend money on advertising with newspapers or TV, so I went right to social media,” Symons said.  “(I) started using Twitter, Facebook…showing pictures of the shirts, trying to get your friends to ‘like’ the page and spread the word.  Facebook has been huge—without it I don’t know if we’d be here right now.”

Yooper Shirts sends shirts all across the country, and Symons said that it wouldn’t be possible without the help of social media.

“People more than likely found out about it through Facebook, not just (through) their friends, but the Facebook page, us promoting new products constantly, so I don’t think we could have reached everyone (without Facebook),” Symons said.   “(Yooper Shirts) would grow, without Facebook it would have taken a lot longer to get where we’re at.”

“People have a lot more confidence when they see their friends sharing something on Facebook, they’re like ‘oh my friend Suzie–let’s say–really likes this shirt, well I like it too and I trust Suzie so I’m going to trust this company’.  That’s one thing that Facebook’s really good for, is targeting friends and relationships.”

Yooper Shirts has a store in Ishpeming, and as you might have guessed you can visit its Facebook page for the latest designs.