A few weeks ago, I received a direct message on Twitter from a local bar in Pittsburgh. They told me that if I started following them, I’d get a free beer tower at happy hour. My first reaction was — if you can DM me, I’m already following you — but that’s beside the point at hand, I had won free beer! Stoked, I sent them a message back and said I wasn’t planning on going there for happy hour in the immediate future, but would let them know when I was planning on attending. Then, last weekend, my college friends and I decided to go out and this bar was the first place we wanted to stop. So, remembering my Twitter message, I direct messaged the bar back letting them know I’d be there Saturday night and if I could still get the beer even though it wasn’t happy hour.
No answer.
So when I arrived Saturday night with about ten friends in tow, I asked one of the girls at the door who tweeted for the bar.
“I do,” she said.
“Great!” I answered back. “I’m Deanna and you had sent me a DM on Twitter saying I won the free beer tower. Can we get it tonight?”
“No,” girl at door said. “It has to be before 9.”
Dumbfounded, I entered the bar with my friends and went about my business. But I couldn’t help but think what a bad business decision that was for the bar. I’m no celebrity, but I have a good number of Pittsburgh Twitter followers, not to mention the ten people with me that have their own Pittsburgh followings on social media sites. If we got that beer tower, you betcha my friends and I would be tweeting away about how pumped we were to get free beer, and what an awesome place that bar was. Not to mention, we may have even stayed there the whole night instead of hopping elsewhere. A simple $20 investment from this bar would equal a reach of thousands of people on social sites in its target demographic.
So why do some make social media so hard?
I’m not sure, especially because in my opinion, there’s really no right or wrong with these sites – it’s trial and error – but it’s also common sense. It’s about building relationships and genuine loyalty from your audience.
On the opposite side of the bar example is the people that just won’t leave you alone. One guy, someone who follows me on Twitter in a local band, has sent me at least 10-15 tweets about how I should buy his album. If this guy actually got to know me, he’d know his music isn’t really my thing. Spend five seconds looking at my Pandora stations, and his death metal music is a far cry from Britney Spears and David Gray. If he would do a better job researching his potential audience on Twitter, he’d know to look for those tweeting about bands similar to his, or check out what they are listening to on Pandora or Blip.fm. Yes, it takes time but the results equal a following of people who actually like his music. He even retweets himself — often — but that’s a whole other rant . . .
And finally, the last example is another case of people who just won’t leave you alone. This has happened a few times: you friend someone on Facebook, then all of a sudden you have numerous event requests and fan page suggestions. This one person I recently friended owns a yoga studio at least an hour away from my house. She’s right in that she should talk to me because I take yoga, but to keep sending me a fan page request after I’ve repeatedly ignored her is another thing. She should know I would never drive an hour to take a class when I’ve been a loyal yogi of a studio ten minutes from my house for about three years.
To sum up, social media is easy. Yes, it takes time and effort, but people are making it way too difficult. Find your correct audience, give them what they want, listen, and follow through. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by dferrari: New blog post: Social Media: So Easy, Yet Why Do Some Make It So Hard? http://bit.ly/4K9Bo…
I started being “stalked” by Pittsburgh area restaurants, bars, etc. on Facebook… Join or Fan this group. It’s moved to Twitter, but they are still implementing the old “restrictions apply.” Don’t they know that with Social Media being a 24/7 medium, our lives are beginning to reflect that same time table? Telling me I can have a free drink or appetizer from 12:00 – 4:30 when I tweet that I’m there at 8 p.m. doesn’t help. It’s a restrictive promotion dealt through an unrestrictive medium. I agree- They make it hard on themselves.
Exactly! If you can tweet me at any hour of the day, your promotion should be good any hour, too! Last time I checked, I become a fan or follower or something or someone because I find it of interest – not because I was asked repeatedly. Very frustrating.
Thanks for the comment, Jess!
That drives me nuts. Its like why even bother putting in the effort if you’re going to 1/2 ass it. You’d think it would be common sense but some people just don’t get it.
If you don’t already follow them check out Bocktown (http://twitter.com/bocktowntapshot ) Chris is one person who has done social media right with her business and is now one of the popular places with pgh social media folk.
I believe I met her at PodCamp but I will have to check out their Twitter page again. Thanks, Doug!
No doubt a $20 investment from the bar might have paid for itself many times over. But maybe not. The mechanics of deciding who is important and who isn’t for a bar or restaurant is tough to say the least on a Saturday night. You knew their intention behind their tweet; getting people there early and during the week.
They probably haven’t nailed just how they are going to run this channel just yet. Could be a teachable moment on your part?
How would you suggest they handle requests like yours? Take your word for how influential you are? Recognize that you’ve got a big group and are likely to spend much more than the $20 comp? Maybe comp and then ask you to tweet about your experience?
That’s a good question. And you’re right about driving traffic when it’s less crowded during the week – that’s when bars need that extra push. Plus, I’m not a Steeler so I don’t have *that* much influence!!
I don’t think it matters if you have 50 followers or 500, the fact is that I made the effort to go there and ask. I also think the deciding factor should have been the large group with me. Even if no one said anything on social sites, we’d mention it to our other friends or work colleagues on Monday. It’s that good old fashioned word of mouth. Or they could have DMed me the next day and said something like sorry we couldn’t fulfill your request but come in any time between X and Y and you’ll get your free beer. Maybe it’s just how the positioned the promotion in the first place that could have been fixed all together.
Thanks for the comment! Now you’re making me think.
and they never said what beer either so there is a good chance that it’s probably miller lite or something that they already charge with huge markup. So they lose a couple bucks but ones that’s gone they should see that your group will buy more drinks, even mixed, and make that money back in one round.
Along with your free beer DM they should have sent a url to a page explaining the rules.
I agree that many don’t use the tools properly. I think direct messaging ought to be used for more personal conversations and requests and certainly not repeated marketing messages. I market my true calling coaching events and programs frequently as tweets but never making them the majority of my tweeting. I think most folks understand that we use these tools for business and moderation is key.
I agree, Tom – it’s all about moderation. We all have things we want to push and messages we want to send, but as long as we change it up and aren’t just robots sending the same messages over and over, we’ll have success. Which reminds me of an article by Guy Kawasaki in Entrepreneur this past March: http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2009/march/200084.html
All of these tips are just bad. Esp #2 “Send @ messages to the smores. They probably won’t answer you, but that’s OK. You just want to appear to have a relationship with them.”
Are you kidding me? So pretending to talk to people is what works? I don’t think so! 🙂
That is a shame. Unfortunately, it seems the issue is a much with how some businesses are run as it is how they act online. My guess is the bar would treat you the same way if you came in from another form of marketing (stick to their random internal policy, ignoring you have 10 people with you). Twitter or not, we all know hundreds of people personally, professionally etc, and are much more likely to talk about negative experiences than positive ones. You’re right, $20 for free beer, and 10 satisfied connected people, vs the outcome. It’s a shame, but I’m not too surprised!
Thanks for the comment Russell! You’re right, this sounds like the result of a poor business plan.
There was a restaurant downtown that was tweeting about drink specials that I was retweeting and retweeting. Some people that follow me went there only to be told that those specials were intended for a location in another state. Whoa – the Twitter profile had Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. The bartender chose to honor the special. Thanks for not making me look like a fool.
Another restaurant in downtown was prominently advertising a lunch special on their website. I, along with some of my coworkers decided to go there for lunch. I was going to tweet about the special, but ran out of time. We arrived, asked about the special and the waitress said “oh, that was for last month”. Thank goodness I didn’t tweet it.
It’s not so much about just social media or any meda. It’s about being a good business operator. Someone comes into your store, you want to make sure that person has a good experience and not only comes back, but tell his friends about it. Coupon expired yesterday? Honor it. Sale starts tomorrow? Tell me about it today.
I agree with Father Spoon. Bocktown does an awesome job. Not only do they tweet their specials, they do a very good job of interacting on Twitter. And they thank me for my tweets. I’ve never been there as it’s off the beaten path for me, but I will.
Wow what a story. I think we all have stories like this to share. And you’re right, it all comes down to the basics of customer service. Now with things like blogs and Twitter, those bad and good experiences get relayed to thousands of people! Exactly why I didn’t name the bar in this blog. I could have, but it’s a pretty good place I’ll most likely visit again. It won’t stop me from going back so I don’t want to trash it online. On the other hand, who knows? They could have gotten one or two new customers if they honored their tweet.
Honor thy tweet. 1st commandment of social media 🙂