3 Reasons Venues Can Use #Twitter to Entice and Engage

Last week I wrote a post about how to make social media work with digital signage. One of the points I made was that venues can take the initiative to start a conversation.

Start the Conversation

Put a tweet on your board that says, “Who won Wimbledon this year? Stop by the front desk. The first right answer wins a free soda!” Engage your customers. Don’t wait for them to start.

Chuck responded to me, via Twitter of course, to ask about this point. (Read from bottom up.)

So is it okay for a venue to tweet when it is only relevant for the screen in the venue?

We see this all time.

We see tweets from people sharing pictures or thoughts about where they are, and they are irrelevant to most of the followers.

He’s at a restaurant in Arizona. I’m in Northern California. There is pretty much no chance I’ll get to see what he’s eating, nor will I get to try it myself.

If individual Twitter users can behave like this, can large venues do the same?

For example, let’s say Food Cafe puts out a tweet like, “Trivia: Who won last year’s World Series? Say the answer at the counter and get 10% off your order!” This tweet would go out to everyone who follows Food Cafe. The question most likely is not whether it’s relevant, but if it’s appropriate.

Yes. It is appropriate.

It is for three reasons.

It engages the people in the venue.

Following the example above, you may follow Food Cafe and be looking for some place to eat for lunch. Easy trivia plus 10% off and I’m there! If I’m in the venue and see it, I get the deal.

It shows what you might be missing.

You may follow Food Cafe because they share amazing recipes, but you may not live near the restaurant. A tweet like this may entice you to want to visit, see what they’re about. You may not be able to take advantage of this special, but you might should you be in the area some time soon.

It turns Twitter into a location-based platform.

This is exactly what Foursquare and Gowalla do. Look at C.C.’s tweet. He sent it through Foursquare. If a venue combines the appeal of location-based marketing with the reach of Twitter, and you have an incredible channel on which to engage followers.

Now, is it relevant? It is only to those who take value in the tweet itself. For others, it isn’t. That’s okay, though. In most cases we follow people (or brands or venues) because of a few tweets put out that we like, but we rarely judge Twitter accounts by a single tweet or thousands. It’s an average.

At the end of the day, Twitter is about sharing good stuff. Sometimes the target is focused, some times it’s general. Either way, it should be appropriate and positive.

By the way, you can follow Chuck here.

You can follow C.C. here. And I did a review of his book, Content Rules, here.

Both of them are rock solid Tweeters. Follow them, tell them Paul sent you, and you’ll get a 100% discount on a subscription to my blog.

/wink

[Header Image: Eric Fischer]