I opened up the Nashua Telegraph last week and was surprised to find an article about how two Nashua restaurants are using Facebook and Twitter to offer deals and keep in touch with customers.
One of those restaurants is Axel’s Food and Ice Cream (@eatataxels) in Merrimack NH. Axel’s has a web site, a Facebook profile and Twitter page. Through its new Web presence, Axel’s has been running special promotions for Twitter followers and will start providing coupons via Twitter in the near future.
“We’ve been wanting to get on the Web and reach our customers on a daily basis,” said Kristen Costa, one of four family member managers at Axel’s. “It’s just another way to keep contacting them… “The Twitter presence is really ramping up. With the economy now, people are looking to save.”
Although the number of Axel’s Twitter followers has continually increased since the eatery signed up, especially once it started posting more status updates and discounts, Costa admits that their main source of success hasn’t come from the site.
“Right now, our Twitter followers hasn’t expanded as much as we thought it would,” Costa said. “We do have a bigger following on Facebook right now.”
Axel’s loyal customer following may contribute to its success on the Web, but there are other local eateries that are new to this food market, and are using the Web to get their name out there.
Another local restaurant is The Sugar Mommy (@thesugarmommy), which sells homemade baked goods and confections, and was founded only a few months ago by Jenny Cheifetz. Cheifetz’s products are made to order, and though she also has had more success on Facebook, she’s still trying to find a way to successfully use Twitter.
“The more I talk to people, the more they tell me they’re on Twitter,” Cheifetz said. “Twitter, to me, is still a mystery.”
Cheifetz created her Twitter account more than three weeks ago, and she has been using the site in order to provide status updates that let her followers know what current products she is making. For instance, last week Cheifetz posted that she was making vanilla creams and raisin nut clusters. She is hoping, in this tough economy, that daily or weekly updates will provide more publicity and exposure to her new business, without having to pay a hefty advertisement fee.
“I think there’s good potential because you don’t get the (same) exposure on Facebook,” Cheifetz said.
I find it interesting that so many restaurants are using Twitter, even though they don’t have a handle on how to fully monetize it, or measure its success. As Kristen Costa said of Twitter “It’s a powerful tool. We didn’t know quite to the extent.” I wonder if this the Achilles heel of Twitter. So many people have heard of it that they feel they have to be on it, even as Jenny Cheifetz says “Twitter, to me, is still a mystery.” It will be curious to see in three months how many of these local restaurants are still actively using Twitter, or whether it Twitter will have been another fad that has come and gone?
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i can see twitter being a perfect tool to use for local restaurants. i worked in a small mom and pop diner-styled place that served a semi-upscale dinner on Fridays. We were always receiving phone calls from people asking what the menu was going to be. There was talk of creating a email bank so we could email customers the specials of the week, extra. Twitter would have been an easy sub to that. I’d be curious to see if some restraurants start using the site to take reservations.
While success may be mixed so far in these two examples, I adamantly believe Twitter should be used by local businesses. I’ve wrote about it here, http://bit.ly/PE3WL.
good post Nick. I agree with you in that more small and local businesses will be joining Twitter in the coming months
I definitely agree that local restaurants and shops should be using Twitter for marketing and news updates. I’ve seen restaurants offer Twitter-only discount where customers have to say or show that they follow the restaurant on Twitter to receive the discount. The restaurant can then track exactly how many people used the discount. They gain more followers with promotions like that, which gives them a bigger audience for later announcements and promotions.
Another interesting aspect of Twitter is that tweets are public and archived. Google and other sites crawl Twitter and those posts can be searched for later in places other than Twitter. It gives restaurants a larger mouthpiece than their own list of followers at the time of the tweet.
Thanks so much for posting this article. I am The Sugar Mommy and I think I am getting a little better at the Twitter thing now, especially since my new blog feeds automatically. It’s a crazy world, this whole social media thing, but with a helpful community out there to offer advice and suggestions, it gets easier everyday. Thanks again!
Local businesses are definitely starting to utilize twitter as Marketing tool. We have been mapping local businesses for the last 3-4 weeks that are on Twitter from all over the world. Clearly US is taking the lead here but we are also seeing a ton of businesses in Europe picking up on the trend but not quite at NY level yet. http://bit.ly/W8e6w
You should checkout SinglePlatform (www.singleplatform.com). We are a social media and marketing platform specifically for restaurants and bars and we are already working with thousands of restaurants and bars across the country.
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