Neal's Notes

Over the past few months I’ve read numerous stories on how businesses of varying sizes and all walks of life have utilized Twitter to snag more customers and increase revenues.

Small businesses, in particular, that have limited marketing/advertising dollars to spend have found Twitter to be especially useful.

A New York Times story accentuated this:

“Because small-business owners tend to work at the cash register, not in a cubicle in the marketing department, Twitter’s intimacy suits them well.”

The article also quoted an industry analyst, Greg Sterling, who focuses on the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses:

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these super small businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple.”

Probably one of the most ubiquitous Twitter business success stories is Los Angeles-based Kogi Korean BBQ. Owner Mark Manguera tweets his BBQ truck’s locations and times each day so customers can easily find him. They now have topped 22,000 followers and more than 800 people are served at each stop.

But on a personal note, we’ll be starting project work for a client in the next few weeks – and it was all based on a bawdy Tiger Woods retweet from a friend.

The retweet was seen by a former project manager who worked for a company that we represented for 14 years until they took their PR in-house. I had not corresponded with this soon-to-be client in almost a decade. But somehow he spotted that retweet circulating out there in the digital ether world, tracked me down and contacted me.

And to add to the karmic connections, one magazine example that I sent to him to demo our capabilities also featured his photo (unbeknownst to me) – he was conducting a product demonstration for a public agency official.

Proverbial bottom line – I went out and bought a few extra California Lottery and Mega Millions lotto tickets (haven’t won yet, but there’s always that next drawing) and suggested to my soon-to-be client to do the same. We had a good chuckle over a coffee but were both amazed at how effective social media tools can be, no matter how they may be implemented.

Got any weirder examples? I’d love to hear them.