Sent a tweet late yesterday morning to one of my favorite restaurants. I was going to be driving by, so I tweeted asking about take-out options...
And within 15 minutes, I got messaged back with a phone number to call to place my order.
Good show Verde!
To be honest, if you are a restaurant, you need to be on Twitter. If you are not, you are slowly bleeding to death.
You need to respond quickly to inquiries like mine... Because if you are missing them, you are losing opportunities to restaurants that are responding.
Don't give me any crap about not having time. It is simply a matter of having someone at the restaurant, monitoring their Twitter page on a smart phone clipped to their waist.
Simple. No excuses.
It is just the price of doing restaurant business today.
Here are other things I'd do with this:
1. Obviously, respond quickly to tweets like the one I sent above.
2. I'd send Twitpics out frequently, and/or upload pics to your restaurant Facebook page. Send out pics of good meals, send out pics of people celebrating their birthdays, send out pics of cool cocktails, bottles of wine that you offer...
3. Wanting to build up a lunchtime crowd, send out pics of large office parties and tweet out specials. Direct from your smart phone as you walk around the restaurant...
4. Send out tweets like this: "We currently have a waiting list, but first person to come in and ask for Gary's table, you'll get seated right away!"
5. As long as you have the smart phone attached to the hip, you really ought to be monitoring your geolocation check-ins - Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places...respond to comments, or go say hello to people who have just checked-in...
6. Why does having people check-in on Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places matter? Because when they do, those announcements generally show up in people's twitter streams and/or Facebook streams. This builds awareness of your restaurant. Demonstrates that your joint is vibrant and happening!
What else would you add?
If you own or operate a restaurant, and you aren't active on Twitter, you are missing opportunities to build deeper relationships with people in your community, and building more loyal customers.
Simple.