Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Twitter & Local: NPR reports that Tweeting Food Truck Draws L.A.’s Hungry Crowds
Today on NPR’s morning edition they aired a nearly 4 minute piece about a chef that has built a loyal, local following from his truck using Twitter.
On a recent evening, hundreds of people stood in line in L.A.’s Little Tokyo neighborhood to try the much-heralded tacos. Chuck Chun, who drove in from Orange County, waited an hour and a half to place his order for $26 worth of food.
Chun found the truck with the help of a tool that has become the necessity of any serious foodie these days — a Twitter account.
“You’ve got to go on Twitter to get the most up-to-date news on what kind of specials they have that day or where they are,” Chun explains. “They actually got here late — that’s what they announced on their Twitter.”
It’s so 2009: Customers instantly know where the truck is, even if actually getting the food takes hours.
Mario Duarte also located the truck using Twitter……
[Choi] credits a large degree of Kogi’s success to hiring a new-media consultant who helped spread the word of Kogi virally.
“As a chef, I always think it’s the food, but I think without Twitter it wouldn’t be anything,” Choi says, “because I could have made these tacos, but I would have had no one to sell them to.”
Kogi not only has over 8,000 followers on Twitter, it has customers so loyal they’ve created YouTube tributes and a song (“Ode to Kogi”) on MySpace.
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Comments
15 Comments
I spend a lot of time talking to SMBs and most have limited interactive media skills at best. Recents study have showed only about half of SMBS even have a website. I think the biggest take away from this article is that IF you have a remarkable product, leveraging social media can be a great strategy. I have never had Kogi’s food, but from the reviews it is amazing and worth talking about. On the flip side if you own a franchise sandwich shop, no one is going to spread your message unless you are giving away sandwiches for free. Too many SMBs (most of the local search market) don’t know enough about the tools or social media that to put their arms around this concept. They see a success story and want to know how they can re-create themselves, which is not so easily done.
I think your take aways are spot on…Kogi’s did not do it themselves but they did invest in professional help. That to me was the key even though they did have a remarkable product.
What I found interesting though was that with an amazing product AND great professional marketing they were able to ramp up quickly with little capital investment and circumvented many of the obstacles that lead to startup failures….they had cash flow and brand recognition before they had high overhead.
The other note of interest was the NPR coverage of Twitter. One can gage a new technology’s coming by its coverage at places at the Wall Street Journal, NY Times and NPR as they move from unknown to stardom.
Mike
Greg Sterling at Screenwerk ran a video on this story a little while ago. It is a remarkable application of modern technology to a local business. It inspired me.
Kudo’s to the Kogi team
Well the inspiration that I took away was how successful the marketing team has been to not just promote Kogi but how well they promoted the promotion. In doing so they have heightened awareness of Kogi to a national level, Twitter and done themselves right as well. They are very good.
Mike
And how many spam twitter accounts did their media company have to create to get to the “over 8,000 followers” number that made it seem like there is a story here large enough for NPR to cover?
Check out accounts like
@tacofan27
@moomary30
@DowntownTonys
Ah, I love it. How cool. Mike, there are no links in your piece. Anywhere I can read more about this?
@DavidW
I don’t doubt that there is a fair bit of “pump priming” going on. It is a tactic that may only work in the early days of the technology so that it does get the attention of national media. And it may have exceeded the bounds of propriety. I would love to hear your opinion on that.
@Miriam
I fixed the link above. sorry. Her it is again: Tweeting Food Truck Draws L.A.’s Hungry Crowds
ya know, twitter, uggg, it just annoys me. And the hype/spam/googlekiller/fiction/werehopingforabigbuyout buzz going on over past couple months really gets to me, BUT I do like this one story.
Using twitter to promote local business has it’s place for some businesses, while for others it is a complete waste of time. The above example shows when it can work but if you’re Joe the Plumber (an actual plumber, not a wannabe political analyst) or any service where people won’t call on you till they need you then using twitter just makes you a twit.
I think there are three important take aways from this story:
1. Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for the right business model. The Kogi example demonstrates how a well crafted campaign, around the right business model, can build an overnight successon a shoe string budget. All of the recent media attention shows that Twitter is becoming more main stream everyday. Some businesses will be able to leverage Twitter with great success, but it won’t work for everyone.
2. Twitter is just a tool, just like radio, television, search marketing, and blogging. Twitter is not the end all, be all application. When analyzing a marketing strategy and considering twitter is important to know what functions are really powerful on twitter:
– Broadcasting a Message, especially time or geographically sensitive messages to a group of followers (Demonstrated by Kogi Story)
– Spreading something remarkable virally (Demonstrated by Kogi Story)
– Searching for information around a specific event (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23marketplaces2009)
– Sharing Feed Back with friends/followers in real time, such as commenting on a speech, tv show, sporting event (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23sounders)
– I am sure there are a few others I have missed
3. When using Twitter, or any other advertising tool, you have to first look at your business goals and then match them to the tools and methods that achieve your goals most effectively. Twitter will be extremely powerful to achieving some goals, worthless to others.
@Mike
Did they exceed the bounds of what’s proper? Hard to say, it depends on where you draw the line. They have over 540 pages of followers and when you dig down to the very last page you find the very first follower mikeprasad. He appears to be the “new-media consultant” that Choi “hired” (actually he’s co-owner and also owns their domain) and he’s probably the only guy who knows how much, if any, padding went on here.
To a certain extent even if there was mass padding going on, what’s the harm?
The real question though is how much use is Twitter to the average small local business?
@Craig
Great summary. I have been mulling over the parameters that made this a success and trying (in my feeble non twitter educated mind) to understand when and where this tactic makes sense….particularly as it relates to the size and types of clients I serve. Thanks
@DavidW
I am trying to answer both questions myself…when and where and if twitter might relate to the average small business and for my edification how the boundaries are viewed.
Clearly as Craig pointed out its usefulness is limited on most cases but it has merit in some and clearly, in this case was widely successful.
@Mike
After hearing the Kogi story one of the places I’ve been thinking about using Twitter is for my local clients with inventory. For example, whatever the latest greatest hard to get your hands on toy is this Christmas. “Find out when X hits our store, follow us in Twitter” type thing could work great.
@David
Similar to my thinking over the past few days in reviewing which clients might find it of value…
One a startup farmer’s market that has different produce every week and the other a jeweler with very seasonal, event driven demand…
Wow, that is a simple way to really simplify customer and business interaction. When I first saw Twitter, I never foresaw it becoming as big as it is.
Well, i think twitter is a great tool for branding and promotion use. Nowadays, more than facebook people are using twitter to promote their products, and twitter is growing twice as much faster as facebook. All i can say is that Twitter is the future tool for businesses success.
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