Let’s say you had a customer that was a raving fan of your business and as part of their support, they tweeted while at your restaurant about how much they loved your food, would you then turn around and reply publicly on Twitter to his praise by accusing him of not leaving a big enough tip for the server?

I didn’t think so..but this is exactly what Bogota Bistro in Brooklyn did during the week and the masses are divided as to whether this was a crass, publicity seeking move in poor taste or a genuine attempt at protecting the livelihood of their serving staff.

Personally I don’t like it. It would be better all round to make a note of the particular diner’s details and refuse a booking the next time if they felt strongly enough about the under-tipping, but what customer is going to want to tweet from the restaurant again?

The next tweet might call out a customer’s body odor or the clothes they’re wearing! Who knows?

After listening to a range of bar owners, hospitality consultants and beverage industry suppliers at the conference sessions at the Nightclub & Bar Show, the one constant in every business that grew in 2009 was how social media drove that growth. Let me explain…

I came across this great post during the week by social media expert Chris Brogan who sat down with Joe Sorge, owner of AJ Bombers as well as Water Buffalo, and a few other restaurants in Milwaukee.

In this great interview, Joe talks about how he uses social media to power his business. Proof if ever there was proof needed that social media can make a huge difference in bars and restaurants when used correctly.

The Bodega in Columbus, Ohio is  an eatery, a bar, a carry-out, and a coffee shop all rolled into one.

It’s your corner store with a little bit of everything, a casual, neighborhood shop that is reflective of it’s location and its atmosphere. And they use Twitter. They use Twitter very well. They talk to their customers, mention when they have tapped a new keg or barrel of whiskey, share cocktail picks and keep their followers (800 of them) updated on upcoming promotions and the results of past successful events.

As a neighborhood bar, their customer base is nearby and they use Twitter take advantage of this. Below you will see a screenshot of a recent push to get people in the door:

Cost of the promotion? A couple of dollars. Involvement with the community and clever creative promoting? Priceless.

Is there something similar that you could do in your bar?

Twitter-mania took over the world in 2009. You couldn’t move without hearing a mention of a tweet or a new business or celebrity using the social media platform. The trouble is, too many bars, restaurants and businesses jumped on the bandwagon too quickly, long before they understood how the platform worked and instead have wasted countless hours tweeting the wrong tweets, following the wrong people and making countless mistakes in the process. It seemed like the advice to listen, listen, listen then act wasn’t followed by new adopters of the service in many cases this year.

A few examples I have come across include the hotel with 150 followers (mostly spam followers) that was tweeting special offers 50 times a day. Who was listening? Did the spam followers care? What about the business that did nothing but post links back to their services on their website? Do you think that people use twitter to get more sales pitches or advertising? Highly unlikely.

The key message that many businesses seem to have overlooked is that Twitter is an ENGAGEMENT & SOCIAL platform. That means you have to engage and you have to be social. You have to talk to customers, share interesting links, photos, videos, images and keep an eye on comments about your brand.

You’ll know you’re heading in the right direction when your followers start to reply to you, retweet you and engage with you. Until this is happening, you’re doing something wrong.

If you’re not sure how well or how poorly you’ve been using Twitter, you should check out this great free online Twitter Guide for Businesses before you waste any more time!

Follow me on Twitter: @manageyourbar

I came across this promotion which, although it’s the first of it’s kind that I’ve seen, I know we’re all going to see a lot more of them. Marriott Hotels in Hawaii are running a competition to win a trip to Hawaii in return for promoting and publicizing the competition to your Twitter followers and Facebook friends. I imagine that over the coming weeks, this competition will have been seen by millions of people AND the Marriott Hawaii will have built a database of millions of email addresses to advertise to in the future.

Click to Enlarge

This is where the money will be made as we move into a new era of advertising and online social interaction. The reach this competition will have for the investment made will be far greater than anything they could do on television for the same reach and return.

Similar ideas you could implement in your bar or restaurant include:

• Free drinks to the first 10 people to retweet a particular message on Twitter
• Free entry to an event to the next 10 new fans on your facebook fan pages
• Bring in ten of your friends and you drink free
• Prize to the first person into the bar to say “I won, I won”
• Prize for the next person into the bar wearing a pink sweater.
• the list is endless.

Get creative and remember, in it’s simplest format, a promotion like this need cost no more than your time and a prize.

Most of you by now are using Twitter in some capacity for your business. If you’re not, you should be! Twitter affords a bar owner tremendous opportunities to grow their business, engage with present and prospective customers, show the personal side of your business and build some links to your bar blog or bar website. Ok, these are some of the recommended ways to use Twitter.

On the other hand, just as quickly (actually quicker) as you can build your business on Twitter, you can destroy it. This is a great article showing you 5 easy ways to kill your business on Twitter!

Full Article Here