Marketing Restaurant Online

Well for the past few weeks I have been busy tweeting and learning the right strategies to tweet in order to increase the number of followers and more importantly building a solid network based on shared interests on the same subject topics. I must admit that after this 2-3 weeks of experimentation, twitter is addictive once you get hooked. It is like a suspense movie that you never know what is coming next and keep you hooked on the seat for hours and makes you keep on tweeting.

I just wanted to let my self free and dive into the twitter world and experience for myself what it is really like. It was kind of short vacation from my blogging world. I feel so relaxed and energized to write this article not just based on reading an ebook and blog post about twitter but in fact experimenting those Twitter strategies myself and then sharing it with my audience.

I feel there is a difference between education and learning. Education to me is when you study or get information from an ebook or from some experts. But learning is when you apply those education that you studied in to practise to get the results. So with all the education I got from all different ebooks, and twitter experts I tried to put them in to practise and these were the following lessons that I learnt.

Again, I would highly recommend you to take this real life experimentation of Twitter education and put it into practise. That is when learning begins and improve upon one tweet at a time, understanding that learning never stops and keeps continuing for a life time to come.

Lessons Learnt from my  Twitter Experiment.

1. Build a relationship  with your followers and also one who you follow as well like @SocialNetworkTV
2. Study before following any body and make the first tweet very personalised like @iRestaurant
3. Try to inject humour with your twitter to give a different flavour like @PopeyesChicken
4. Ask questions rather than just tweeting a plain statement like @mikefilsaime
5. Tweet in relation to your subject topics and also other occasional personal tweets like@geekpreneur
6. Don’t try to promote only your blog or your product or service in every tweets. Recommends @sethgodin
7. Humanise your tweets like @chrisbrogan

Build a relationship  with your followers and also one who you follow as well like @SocialNetworkTV

William Lark @SocialNetworkTV gave me this great tip on twitter that any one can overlook. Infact I also overlooked this in some way. I started building a strong relationship with those who followed me first because it is natural that when some one followed you, that means they liked some thing about your profile or tweets that was of similar interest to them. If not all at least the genuine followers believed that principle.But I used to think that the big guys with thousands of twitter followers whom we initially started following would not even care about little guys. That is still true but it doesn’t mean that you can not start building relationship with them too. Persistence wins their heart and quality tweets wins their mind. Even if they don’t return your tweets and DMs keep trying with great powerful tweets. Let me tell you one thing eventually you will get response.I know it because I have got response from John Jantsch @ducttape

Study before following any body and make the first tweet very personalised like @iRestaurant

Oh boy! I should not credit my self. But you know what there are something you learn on your own in the process of learning. So at times you can get credit for your self , that is ok. I wouldn’t mind if you learn something of your own and share with me. I would be happy to put it in my next blog post and give you your credit for that too. I read in some articles that Boeing Company before it initiate it’s talks with potential buyers they find out every detail about the buyer. This is very important because it is not a $1000 dollar deal. We are talking about multi million and billion dollar transaction in one sale. I feel you should treat your first tweet to your follower in the same manner. You will be surprised how reactive they would be. It is human nature. No body wants to be generalised as sir or madam especially in Twitter world. They would prefer ” Hi John or Hi Marianda”. Once you understand their core interest, I would recommend you to follow back and start building relationship based on their interest and not yours starting with very personalized tweets.

Try to inject humour with your twitter to give a different flavour like @PopeyesChicken

This is another great tip that I learnt from @PopeyesChicken. The reason people come on Twitter is not just because they want to talk about their daily life but also because it is a fun place to be with full of interesting people. Life in physical world and especially at the corporate world is so boring and dull that people love coming to Twitter to meet with cool people full of fun and joy. Just think about it as a party. When you go to a party nobody want to hang around a guy or a girl who is talking simply boring stuff. Most often you see more people hanging around a person who is full of energy, passion and most importantly full of funny jokes while presenting his views what ever it might be. Have you ever heard a burst of laughter coming from a corner of a party and made you think what on earth is going with that crowd. It creates curiosity in your mind to find out what really that laughter  was about. Even if you were talking with some one,you want to join that group to share that joy and fun. Well this is what exactly what happens in Twitter. So it is very important to be that guy in the party who creates that excitement and curiosity to not only group he is talking to but people far away from him.This principle is very well displayed by Popeyes Chicken. Every now and then I get their funny tweet. If you want to get the taste of humorous tweet, you can do so by following them at @PopeyesChicken

Ask questions rather than just tweeting a plain statement like @mikefilsaime

A great tip that many people on Twitter miss and  I learnt it from Mike Filsaime while I was watching his interview with Joel Comm at Twitter A Thon. Twitter is a place where you break the ice with other people that you have never seen and never met but have a common interest on the same subjects. It is like a real life where you you start a conversation when you meet a new people. But  how do you do to make it natural and reactive. You could say some thing like this. “It is cold out side. I am craving for some soup today.The restaurant has tomato basil and chicken noodle soup. Which one would you recommend?”  See here instead of  throwing just a plain statement you ended with a question. This enables human mind to react to the question because they are looking for an answer. If you had said just It is cold out side and craving for some soup today.The restaurant has tomato basil and chicken noodle soup. It looks so plain and old statement that the other person at the other end would not know what to say or do. In fact it might confuse him and make him feel awkward. I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she would run away just because he or she didn’t feel comfortable around. Also don’t make it look like  if it is coming from a nerd with his dark specs not knowing how to start a conversation with a beautiful girl. Even if she had attracted to him to begin with she would be the first person to run far away from that person because of the boring stuffs he talks about and the style he presents. So please don’t be that boring guy in Twitter. This might be my biggest advise.

Tweet in relation to your subject topics and also other occasional personal tweets like @geekpreneur

This is the tip that I got from reading the ebook titled “A Geek’s Guide To Promoting Yourself And Your Online Business On Twitter”. I highly recommend it. Though it says for online business it is also applicable for offline business like restaurants. When you enter to the world of Twitter you go with a strategy. You have a mission to accomplish whether it is to sell your product or service. It is always good to make most of your tweets in regards to that specific subject topics with the niche target market in your mind. You just don’t tweet random thoughts right and left. Every tweet is very carefully scripted not only to inform your target audience but also leaving a net for others to find you when they are searching for that term on search.twitter.com Every now and then you can tweet about your own personal thing that you find relevant to your audience. That way this gives them a sense of surprise tweet rather than assuming you are the same old tweeterer who tweets only about your blogs or the same old same old topics.

Don’t try to promote only your blog or your product or service in every tweets.Recommends @sethgodin

This is one of the most “out of the box” kind of  tips that I learnt from Seth Godin-one of the most  reknowned marketers of our times who has seen the fundamental changes in the marketing world with the birth of internet and with his Squidoo lens. Seth Godin doesn’t promotes his book on any podcast that I have listened to. Infact he doesn’t want to even mention about it. I call it “Reverse Marketing.” He makes a subtle sales by bringing the insights into the subject of marketing. People get so intrigued that he doesn’t have to really sell his book. It sell by itself. People are more curious why he doesn’t shout loud like others trying to sell their books.It makes people to find out about it more organically and naturally than him trying to forcefully convince people to buy his books. I have taken this to my heart. I fully believe this strategy. I would recommend you to use this strategy if you want to win the hearts and mind of your target audience or customers for a life time and not just when you are tweeting just for the sake of the sales.

Humanise your tweets like @chrisbrogan

Last but not the least please, the tip that is probably the most important tip and that is  humanise your tweets. This is a tip that I got from Chris Brogan when I listened to his podcast interview with John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing. Don’t make it look like some computer robots throwing those tweets. Chris Brogan says in his own words that “Twitter is full of human beings but computer robots.” A person  likes to talk to another person. So when you communicate with your followers or new prospects try to make a real life conversation may be with little touch of passion, excitement and obviously not to forget the humour. Thought there are some automated tools to make our life easier, Chris Brogan seems not a great fan of automated tools as it takes away the charm of human to human connection that is meant to be established by Twitter.

These tips that I have learnt over the course of last 2-3 weeks are just the basics of Twitter practises and there are still more to be learnt. So keep your eyes and ear open to different ideas and you will learn fast to attract more followers and convert them into your customers for a life time to come.