Tweet Your Way to Success

There has been a lot of buzz about Twitter lately. In fact, while many business owners have been reading all about Twitter in the news, many don’t actually realize the significant impact Twitter can have on their business. Restaurants in particular have an enormous opportunity to leverage the power of Twitter to their advantage.
 
Twitter, unlike a variety of other social media tools is all about spreading your brand message to as many people as you can.
 
Think of Twitter like a mountain: Your brand is on top of the Twitter mountain. The people who follow you on Twitter are at the bottom of the mountain. Using Twitter you can broadcast messages (tweets) to all of your followers down the mountain. After receiving your tweet your followers have several options:

1. They can Retweet (RT) your message to their followers thereby spreading your message farther.
2. They can Reply (@reply) to your tweet giving you feedback and information.
3. They receive your tweet and take physical action.

Now, for the first time ever you can talk with your customers one on one and influence their decisions. Since the creation of restaurants, we have continuously made efforts to get our message out there….our location, our hours of operation, the daily special, the coupon we’re passing out, what we’re serving on special holidays. In order to generate awareness and get communication to our customers we bought advertising. With Twitter this is no longer necessary because our customers can follow us, thereby acknowledging they want to hear from us and have an ongoing conversation with us. With advertising your message gets broadcast to people and you don’t really ever know who receives it, with Twitter you know exactly who you’re talking to and they can respond back to you.
 

 
This past week the NY Times published a story about a local mobile restaurant owner in San Francisco, CA who utilizes Twitter to notify his customers of the location of his crème brulee cart throughout the city. When he tweets his upcoming location, upon his arrival he’ll fine customers already there waiting. Can you imagine sending a tweet and then find customers waiting for you!? Through Twitter he has created a solid customer base that anticipates and responds to his updates.An interaction like this between owner and customer has never before been possible. The opportunity to connect with your customers before they arrive at your location is truly extraordinary and it drives repeat business, brand awareness and customer loyalty.
 
This story is just one example of how you can leverage Twitter to move your business forward.
 
Below are 4 reasons why Twitter is your best marketing tool:

1. Mobile: your customers any time, any place and anywhere. One of Twitter’s best features is that it can be used as a mobile based application. This means that you can connect and share with all of your followers right through you mobile phone.
2. Simple: With a limit of 140 characters or less, your tweets should be short and to the point. This feature makes your messages easy to read, interpret and take action from. (However once you get started I recommend you start using a Twitter organization tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic to make it even easier for you.)
3. Engagement: Unlike advertising, Twitter is an ongoing conversation with your customers. Through the sharing of links, Retweets (RT) and replies you can stay connected with your most loyal customers. 
4. Cheap: Twitter is free. The only thing required is your time.

Getting started using Twitter is easy and there are a lot of great tools and guides out there to teach you the best and most strategic steps to take when building your base of Followers. I recommend that you start with Twitter’s recently published Twitter 101 guide which is available here for free.
 

 
I’m confident that once you have established a base of loyal Followers and start offering them real value through your tweets, you will find that you can accomplish far more with Twitter than anything else you have recently tried. With Twitter there is a guarantee that you will: meet new people, spread your brand, and create a loyal following. What could be better than that?
 
To get more from Dan send him an email danielrholm@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DanHolm
 
You can also follow FoodService Europe & Middle East on Twitter @fseme