The Advertising Specialty Institute® reported today that Stitches magazine is a finalist for a 2010 Jesse H. Neal Award for its “Stitches Magazine Social Site” (stitchesmagsocialsite.com).

The Neal Awards, established in 1955 to recognize and reward editorial excellence in business media publications, are considered the “Pulitzer Prize of the business media.”  Stitches is nominated in the category of “Best editorial use of social media.”

“We are honored by this first-time recognition of our online efforts,” said Nicole Rollender, editor of Stitches and director of ASI Education. “Our goal was to create a hub where Stitches readers can connect in real time and feel like they’re part of a community created just for them. Members can reach out, network, post questions and photos and discover new trends and fresh ideas that can help them grow their business.”

Stitches’ social networking site has a growing audience of 1,500 members, including embroiderers, screen printers, machine technicians, distributors, suppliers, digitizers and apparel designers. The site features live chats, forums and groups, blogs, an events calendar, video and photo pages, and an RSS feed that pulls in news articles posted on stitches.com.   

Celebrating its 23rd year, Stitches magazine is the voice and vision of the embroidery industry. By providing step-by-step processes and knowledge about how to increase sales in the embroidery marketplace and promotional products industry, Stitches is the ultimate resource for commercial embroiderers and apparel decorators. The publication has a total audience of more than 43,000* and 32% of readers have an annual sales volume of $100,000 or greater.

Winners of the 2010 Jesse H. Neal Awards will be announced March 11 at a luncheon in New York City.
 
For more information, contact Rich Fairfield, executive vice president and publisher for ASI’s six magazines, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 
About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 22,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools. 

Source: Company release, Trevose, PA, February 11, 2010