Twitter Coming to a Store Near You…SOON!

By Neal Schaffer

Twitter coming to a store near you...SOON!

It is no secret that 2009 saw the dawning of the new era of consumers using social media to find deals and product information.  If you didn’t hear, Toys R Us symbolized this new movement by releasing their new catalog on their Facebook Fan Page, and in doing so picked up between 40,000 to 95,000 new fans per day over the week before Thanksgiving.  The Toys R Us Facebook Fan Page has now grown to 430,000 members almost overnight as I write this.  Wow!

But this is not out of the ordinary and only a sign of things to come for the following reason:

Social media represents a convergence of where we go to communicate as well as where we go for information.

It is the Internet and Email all rolled up into one.

And because platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to easily share and thus virally spread information, I would expect every major B2C brand to have a Facebook Fan Page presence.  After all, Facebook is now a nation of 350 million consumers!

But this post is not about the sheer power in numbers that Facebook represents but in the viral power and opportunity for small and local businesses that Twitter provides.  Sure, it’s easy to share on Facebook and have fan page updates show on your news feed, but the ability to ReTweet and, in essence, have your message re-broadcasted to several times the number of followers that you might have on Twitter is like viral marketing on steroids.

So for a local establishment or a small business, a Facebook Fan Page is a nice to have and can help generate some viral publicity, but it is Twitter that is making a lot of success stories, most notably but not limited to the restaurant industry.  My local heroes Kogi’s BBQ are now famous nationwide and have 50,000 followers who eagerly wait the next broadcast of where and when the next taco truck will pull up in Southern California.  Kogi’s BBQ is called America’s first “viral eatery” and they have spawned competitors emulating their tactics.

More recently a report was written on Naked Pizza in New Orleans as the new Twitter success story.  My favorite take away from this article, in addition to the fact that they plan to franchise the restaurant from 1 to 50 locations nationwide over the next several months from their newfound success on Twitter, but it was what co-founder of Naked Pizza Jeff Leach said:

“If your business doesn’t have anything to tweet about, you’d better shift into a business that does have something to tweet about.”

But this is just one Los Angeles taco truck and one New Orleans pizza joint, no?  These are still faraway places, right?  Wrong.  When your local pizza joint that you’ve been going to for years starts asking you to follow them on Twitter for special deals, you know that things are changing all around us.  And that was my “Aha!” moment today when I saw what is pictured above.

Let it be known now so that there are no surprises:

Twitter is coming to a store near you…SOON!  And we’re not just talking restaurants, but any retail establishment.  Any retail establishment can use Twitter to establish a deeper relationship with you and offer you special things to keep you coming back that other types of media just can’t emulate.  And, just like my Costco American Express credit card gives me more cash back on gas, at restaurants and when I travel to ensure I carry the card outside of my house, Twitter is also a popular mobile technology which makes sense for retail establishments to leverage to try to pull you in when you are out doing your shopping.  I don’t see many people looking at Facebook Fan Pages on their phone.

Another good reason for those who haven’t to start tweeting!

Any retail establishment Twitter or Facebook success stories that you’d like to share?