As I’m sure you’ve heard (because it’s nearly impossible to avoid), there’s been quite a bit of political excitement happening in Wisconsin over the past month. I promise to leave the actual politics out of this post and instead focus on some interesting examples of how local Wisconsin businesses have used social media to listen and communicate with their customers during these events.
One shining example comes from Ian’s Pizza on State, located downtown Madison. As the number of hungry protestors grew at the capital, they responded with nearly round-the-clock pizza deliveries – at times, suspending normal in-store and delivery operations to focus solely on the protestors. News of the pizza deliveries spread on the internet and within days the restaurant was receiving orders for pizza deliveries for protestors from around the world – as far away as Egypt, Korea and Denmark, and from nearly all 50 states.
The restaurant used both Twitter and Facebook to communicate with its customers – giving thanks to those sending in orders and keeping local customers up-to-date on current operations. Recently when donations exceeded the need for pizza, Ian’s set up an online poll, allowing customers to respond and vote for where they’d like to see the money donated. And, in one more excellent PR move, the restaurant included “free slice” cards with all local deliveries as a way of saying thank you to their regular customers. Ian’s said helping with the deliveries has allowed them to stay politically neutral during a heated time in Madison – they just deliver pizza.
One very different example involves a local Madison café. After a particularly poignant event in the Wisconsin political debate, the owner of the café took to the restaurant’s Twitter profile to share his support of the event, without first considering how his customers might react to his views. Within minutes, his Tweet spread, resulting in some very vocal disapproval from the café’s loyal customer base. The owner was forced to do damage control immediately, deleting the controversial tweet and apologizing to those he offended. This example is just another good reminder to think before you tweet – know your audience and anticipate how your message will be received.
~ Megan
This resolution in particular hits home for me. I love Twitter for so many reasons. It’s a constant news feed. It helps me monitor conversations and coverage for my clients. It provides a welcome distraction on a Friday afternoon. It helps me catch up with friends and colleagues on Monday morning. But, notice none of my “loves” have anything to do with me tweeting…
Customers have choices? Wait, our client’s product or service isn’t their only option? It sounds so simple, but it’s easy to forget. Customers are faced with countless options, and we need to not only be experts on our client’s business, but their competitors as well. It’s the only way to truly understand the customer’s decision making process.