Taken from the Boston Globe, USA:
On Dec. 2, computer consultant Jen Deaderick got on the social-networking site Twitter and posted: “Tupelo02139 is preparing.’’ It was her first missive, or tweet, on behalf of the Cambridge restaurant Tupelo, where her husband is a chef. The restaurant was more than four months away from opening.
Other tweets followed, about getting inspected, planning the menu, picking the paint. By the time Tupelo opened at the end of April, word had spread among followers of the restaurant’s Twitter stream (@tupelo02139), and their followers’ followers, and so on. “Our opening night was packed,’’ Deaderick said. “At least half were there because of Twitter.’’
What can you do with 140 characters or less, the length of each tweet? A lot, restaurants are discovering - everything from posting daily specials to luring followers with offers of free appetizers to offering a glimpse of kitchen life. It’s all good for business. It’s instant and free marketing,’’ said Chris Barr, a manager at L’Espalier, which joined Twitter this month.
Restaurants are starting to sign on by the dozens, inspired, perhaps, by the success of Kogi, a Korean barbecue taco truck in Los Angeles that gained national notoriety by tweeting its whereabouts. (In February, Newsweek called it “America’s first viral restaurant.’’)
“It was two or three a week [joining], and now it’s closer to two or three or four a day,’’ said Aaron Cohen of the Twitter stream @eatboston, which spreads the word about the restaurant scene. He estimates between 60 and 70 local restaurants have joined - everything from high-end establishments such as L’Espalier and Craigie on Main to quick-service chains like Boloco and Papa Gino’s.
One reason for Twitter’s popularity is that it’s both easy and inexpensive. There’s no need to hire someone to design a website. You just log on and start posting. “You could be a pizza guy at a greasy spoon sending text messages from a three-year-old cellphone,’’ Cohen said. “You don’t need technology to be spreading your message on Twitter. It’s very utilitarian.’’
At Myers + Chang in the South End, chef and co-owner Joanne Chang is an active Twitter user. She updates followers about menu items (she recently added a Kogi-inspired taco to the menu), events, and news, but also offers thumbnail vignettes and mini-recipes, explains ingredients, and solicits customer opinions.
At 4:41 p.m. on June 9 she tweeted: “Should cilantro be listed on menu item when it’s an ingredient? A customer has requested it - didn’t realize cilantro was *such* a hot button.’’
Not four hours elapsed before she had her answer and implemented it: “Cilantro haters have made their voices heard! Will now indicate which dishes have cilantro; all can be made sans ‘soapy devil.’ (I heart it).’’
It’s this kind of interaction that makes Twitter a particularly effective tool, said Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs, a publication that focuses on marketing know-how. These days, that increasingly means using social media. “The whole concept of marketing is to put yourself out there and be memorable,’’ she said. “Twitter adds in another layer of intimacy that marketing in general often lacks. . . . It doesn’t just remind customers you’re here, it engages them.’’
Jennifer Yukimura, a principal at a consulting firm, says that is one reason she uses Twitter to follow restaurants in her South End neighborhood. “I follow Myers + Chang, and it inspires me to go in,’’ she says. “I enjoy that they tweet about people coming in and what they’ve liked, a local customer or somebody from another restaurant even. It gives a kind of community feel to it. It makes me feel connected, like I know what’s going on with the chefs of the restaurants I follow.’’
It’s not just customers who feel more connected. John Pepper, chief executive and cofounder of the wrap-sandwich chain Boloco, uses Twitter to converse with his customers. It has a positive effect on business, he says.
“It allows us to build a better and stronger relationship with those customers in a way that’s comfortable for them,’’ he said. When Boloco wanted to set up focus groups, market research that would have cost thousands of dollars, the company turned to Twitter. Pepper contacted Tom O’Keefe, an online business developer (and avowed fan of Boloco competitor Anna’s Taqueria) whose Twitter stream, @BostonTweet, has more than 6,000 followers. “Within one hour we had 50 people,’’ Pepper said. “It not only saved us all kinds of money, but it turned out to be an amazing group.’’
O’Keefe says he started BostonTweet as a way to create awareness for local restaurants and bars in the down economy. BostonTweet hosts frequent tweetups, events where those using Twitter, a.k.a. tweeps, meet in real life.
“It’s great for business,’’ he said. “It gets people in and they spend money, but it’s also a very vocal group. People talk about the event leading up to it and while they’re there,’’ posting to Twitter via cellphone.
It’s also fun. “I meet so many great people,’’ he said. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.’’
Boston Globe
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