Twitter is a communication platform. It is a hub where people discuss where they eat, get recommendations, learn, interact, and plan gatherings.
People are social. They eat, they meet with each other, they talk about their experiences. If you are a restaurant, you want to be part of this conversation.
When looking in Twitter, restaurant owners often search for conversations relating directly to their restaurant. “Am I being talked about?” So they will search for “Bick’s Restaurant” and be happy with the results or lack thereof.
But do you understand the conversations that are actually happening that make your restaurant relevant?
For example, questions like “Where should I eat?” The results are numerous. Are you the response they are getting back?
What are they saying about restaurants in general? When people are dissatisfied, is it because of the food, the service, the experience? If we search “restaurant sucked” or “excellent food” what do we see?
And when these people on Twitter have a gathering, are they coming to your restaurant? What gatherings are forming? Who is forming them? Here there are 4 pages of tweets talking about this particular dinner.
There are a massive number of sites on the web where people might be talking about your restaurant. Key sites like Twitter are communication hubs that often point at other information. Here we see blog posts that mention restaurants that are broadcast over Twitter.
You can search Twitter by using The Twitter Search Utility or you can use tools like Twitscoop which give you graphs showing how often you are discussed.
In the end, it’s not necessarily the tool you use to make the search. The power of a pool of information like Twitter is how you search. What is that key piece of information that Twitter is hiding that can bring in more customers?
Jim Benson is a partner at Modus Cooperandi and blogs at Evolving Web. Jim is a management consultant who uses social media tools and principles to help his clients communicate. Follow him on Twitter.
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And if you’re a local restaurant you could use the local feature in search to find people!
Twitter is fairly awesome.
Interesting stuff. Checking out Twitscoop now — looks really useful!
Thanks for sharing this. Just used Twitscoop a minute ago and I was able to find my own tweets related to #rawfood. Awesome
And that’s why we love Twitter!
Laura,
Twitter put me in direct contact with the BlogWorld Expo 2008 executives. I volunteered my videography services and received a pass to the show in exchange. They were not planning to record video just audio.
I agreed to record 20+ sessions in three days. It was a logistical exercise to break-down and move in 10 minutes to the next room for recording, threading my way through the crowd to gain entry to break-out rooms.
Enjoyed your panel with Robert Scoble and Doc Searles, and the live ‘Tweeting’ during the panels enriched the interactive discussions.
After the marathon panels, dashing between rooms to reset camera, tripod, microphones and DVD-burner, barely got plugged in and another hour of recording began.
I did not mind standing up from 7:00 am ~ 6:00 pm on Friday Saturday and Sunday, as I my eyes were being opened to the massive reach and power of Twitter.
Preparing a massive donation launch next week. Web page under construction. Beneficiaries? KIDS! More to follow..
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase – ‘the video guy’ at BlogWorld Expo 2008
I wonder how many Twitter users who are writing mini reviews of restaurants know of (or use) more robust sites like http://yelp.com?
Thanks for all the comments everyone!
Ari – Many of them do use yelp – they will use it in a few ways.
1. They will write a review on yelp and broadcast it on Twitter.
2. When they invite people to a tweetup, they will post the Yelp page to…
a. prove that the restaurant is worthwhile
b. give everyone the location
c. extend the social element of the event
Twitter is by no means a replacement for yelp (or anything else), it’s the thin layer of communication on the net that points to the thicker layers.
TwitterOnTheRun is an automated self-sustaining TWITTER program that follows Tweeters who are interested in what you are interested in on TWITTER. You tell the program which Tweeters are already talking about what you are about, and it follows for you just like the specified Tweeter follows. When you follow Tweeters who have common interests with you on TWITTER, they are highly likely to follow you back. Then you can get your message out to all of them with one simple tweet or more tweets, if you choose!