From
Devra J. First of the Boston Globe: On Dec. 2, computer consultant Jen Deaderick
got on the social-networking site Twitter and posted: “Tupelo02139 is
preparing.’’ It was her first missive, or tweet, on behalf of the
Cambridge restaurant Tupelo, where her husband is a chef. The
restaurant was more than four months away from opening.
Other
tweets followed, about getting inspected, planning the menu, picking
the paint. By the time Tupelo opened at the end of April, word had
spread among followers of the restaurant’s Twitter stream (@tupelo02139), and their followers’ followers, and so on.
“Our opening night was packed,’’ Deaderick said. “At least half were there because of Twitter.’’
What
can you do with 140 characters or less, the length of each tweet? A
lot, restaurants are discovering - everything from posting daily
specials to luring followers with offers of free appetizers to offering
a glimpse of kitchen life. It’s all good for business.
“It’s instant and free marketing,’’ said Chris Barr, a manager at L’Espalier, which joined Twitter this month.
Restaurants
are starting to sign on by the dozens, inspired, perhaps, by the
success of Kogi, a Korean barbecue taco truck in Los Angeles that
gained national notoriety by tweeting its whereabouts. (In February,
Newsweek called it “America’s first viral restaurant.’’)
“It
was two or three a week [joining], and now it’s closer to two or three
or four a day,’’ said Aaron Cohen of the Twitter stream @eatboston,
which spreads the word about the restaurant scene. He estimates between
60 and 70 local restaurants have joined - everything from high-end
establishments such as L’Espalier and Craigie on Main to quick-service
chains like Boloco and Papa Gino’s.
One
reason for Twitter’s popularity is that it’s both easy and inexpensive.
There’s no need to hire someone to design a website. You just log on
and start posting. “You could be a pizza guy at a greasy spoon sending
text messages from a three-year-old cellphone,’’ Cohen said. “You don’t
need technology to be spreading your message on Twitter. It’s very
utilitarian.’’
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