PRetty in Pittsburgh

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.