Tweet Ups put human face on viral community
-- Deborah Cohen covers small business for Reuters.com. She can be reached at smallbusinessbigissues@yahoo.com --
CHICAGO (Reuters.com) - At the tech-friendly South by Southwest Music & Media Conference in downtown Austin, Texas, two food companies teamed up on Saturday afternoon for an impromptu product giveaway.
The gathering took place at the Hilton Hotel after representatives from Mighty Leaf Tea Co. and Sugar Mama's Bakeshop rubbed elbows ahead of the event on Twitter, the prolific micro-blogging site, and later decided on a spot to distribute free samples of their complimentary goods.
No glitz, no glitter, no tables, no banners, no traditional promotions of any kind. Just a few well-placed call-outs, or tweets, to Twitter users tuned in to key words relating to the conference, and voila, a quick little crowd was formed, recalls Bliss Dake, Mighty Leaf's vice president of e-commerce and operations.
Dake and the Sugar Mama's representatives stood in front of the hotel's lobby shortly after noon and handed out an assortment of Mighty Leaf's teabags from his laptop bag and a supply of the bakery's freshly made cupcakes, served straight out of the box.
"Within like 10 minutes, 30 or 40 people came by," says Dake, whose company has been strategically working on ways to connect with potential customers on Twitter since June of 2008. "There's a new language, a new medium that's evolving."
This type of meeting, known in technology circles as a Tweet Up, represents one of the most effective ways smaller companies are using Twitter to create live buzz about their products. The Tweet Up brings Twitter users with like interests together in a physical location, putting a human face on a world better known for handles, hash tags and fast-moving tweets, the public dispatches of 140 characters or less.
Small to mid-sized companies, already judicious with their promotional dollars as the recessionary economy pressures their bottom lines, are realizing that no amount of advertising can buy authentic testimonials such as those generated by actual customers. Consider the after-effect of the simple tea-and-cupcake giveaway.
"Random, happy shout out to Mighty Leaf Tea for all the yummy free tea. No reason, just yay from a happy bunch of geeks!," says one participant who goes by the Twitter handle @violetblue.
Another, Ariel Waldman, writes: "Today was a great flash mob for cupcakes and tea!"
GET REAL
Besides familiarizing would-be buyers with their products, companies are also using Tweet Ups to fuel demand with existing customers; their Twitter followers, those Twitter users who have actively signed on for updates from a specific company or individual, represent a rich, self-selected group of devotees eager for news of a company's day-to-day happenings.
Mike Stimola, the franchisor of Sandella's, a Connecticut-based chain of about 135 flatbread sandwich shops, says his operators sometimes use last-minute Tweet Ups to jumpstart sales on slow days, like when the weather is bad. Twitter etiquette frowns upon blatant self-promotion; giving customers a reason to come into the store, however, such as a free sample or special discount just for those in the Twitter know, is seen as a favorable use of the medium.
"You create a much better one-on-one relationship with the customers," says Stimola, whose company also encourages operators and potential franchisees to learn about Sandella's operations via Twitter. "It's a very new way to do things and it's very low cost."
Not all Tweet Ups are spontaneous events. Some are regularly planned happenings with structured formats and agendas, like those that take place among business-to-business services communities around the country. Often those meetings will be advertised on Twitter weeks in advance, and feature guest speakers and dedicated topics.
"I know a lot more people in town and have a lot more resources," says Jonathan Pyle, an officer with San Antonio, Texas-based Barber & Barber Associates, a small engineering consulting firm. Pyle is a regular attendee of professional Tweet Ups.
"It makes in-person communication even more accessible," he says.
Chris Breikss, president of Vancouver, B.C.-based 6S Marketing, a marketing communications firm specializing in online marketing, says Tweet Ups are a great way to extend one's professional network.
"Once we start interacting with the community, then business leads come out of it," says Breikss.
Last Friday, Breikss was the catalyst for a Tweet Up of local marketing types at a popular Vancouver watering hole called the Yaletown Brewing Company. He sent his last call out to round up prospective attendees around 3:09 p.m. local time Friday afternoon:
"vancouvertweetup Yaletown Brewing Company tonight at 4PM. Who's coming?" The result, says Breikss, was some 50 Tweeters descending upon the bar. Its owner joked, that he too, would like a heads up next time, says Breikss. Perhaps he should get a Twitter account.
