Blog of Mr. Tweet

Update1: Updated post with a very nice comment by corporate comedian Graeme Bowman, who uses Twitter to provide “free laughs” to his local community and build up meaningful connections!

Note: We feel that most people are too tied down with “conventional” ways of using Twitter. We believe that the best way of using Twitter is actually to get creative - leveraging its flexibility and customizing it to work best for your purposes!

Twitter is one of the few social networks around that has an enormous amount of flexibility when it comes to how it can be used. No matter what anyone tells you, there really is no “right” way to use Twitter. Trust us, Chris Brogan has already confirmed that you’re not doing it wrong. Sometimes, you just need to tweak your tactics/strategies and tools to achieve different goals.

Think Outside The Box

That is exactly what a small shop in London has done to increase its sales. The Albion in Shoreditch, London is using the first BakerTweet device in its cafe. So what is this BakerTweet we speak of? It’s a new way to engage customers that are right outside your doors and on Twitter! To summarize what BakerTweet does:

BakerTweet is a way for busy bakers to tell the world that something hot and fresh has just come out of the oven. It’s as simple as turning the dial and hitting the button. All of the baker’s followers get a Twitter alert to tell them that it’s bun-time. Or bread time. Or whatever.

You can’t go wrong with this next to your oven!

Of course the concept of BakerTweet can be applied to plenty of businesses, especially those that provide customizable services and would like to get some of their in-store customers onto Twitter.  Could you see a use for it in your field of work? Before you answer that, check out the demo video of BakerTweet in action:

BakerTweet from POKE on Vimeo.

Get Creative

BakerTweet was started as a bit of an inside joke from Poke, a digital creative agency, as a way to get the freshest baked stuff first from Albion. Low and behold, they’ve also stumbled across a unique and successful way to integrate Twitter into businesses. Albion’s Twitter profile has jumped from 300 to over 500 followers since the introduction of BakerTweet.

Sometimes the tools just aren’t as flexible as you need them to be in order to accomplish the task at hand. That’s OK. This is the perfect opportunity for your company to be creative and come up with your own unique solution (and possibly get featured right here).

Twitter’s API is open and ripe with such opportunities and not enough businesses are taking advantage of the opportunities. That’s exactly what Poke and The Albion have done. They took a problem and made their own solution for it without any real need for other Twitter tools. This could save both businesses a nice amount of money and headaches in the long run as Twitter continues to scale.

Educate New Connections About Twitter

Twitter connections are everywhere and so is the opportunity to make more right in your own backyard. Albion not only made more Twitter connections, but will also educate some of their non-twitter customers about Twitter in the future.

With that being said, we’d like to hear your answers to the following:

• Unique Twitter Tools - What unique Twitter tools are you using to help increase customer returns to your business?
• Local Connections - How are you using Twitter to connect with customers right in your backyard?
• Confusing Tools - What tools are you completely baffled about how to use?

Agree? Disagree? We’re anxious to hear your comments and thoughts!

Featured Comment By @graemebowman

As a corporate comedian, hoax speaker and lateral thinking trainer, my aim is to develop long-term local relationships here in Melbourne, Australia. Here are a couple of ways I do it.

Naturally I follow quite a few Melbourne people in business areas relevant to my own, such as marketing, public relations, human resources and event management. If one of them tweets about something specific to Melbourne, I may reply to it, particularly if I can make some humorous remark, or in some way add value to their own comment. At the very least, this is saying ‘Hi, I live here, too, and I’m interested in you.’ And so an informal relationship begins.

Another way I create local connections is to wait until I see a tweet on a topic which is already the subject of a comic video clip on my website. For example, if someone tweets about ‘recycling’ I can invite them to examine a rather unusual way to recycle urban waste using Bolivian Rainforest Worms. I include a link going straight to the Hoax Speaker page on my website, where the video clip is located.

So I suppose what I am doing to establish local connections is to put a smile on people’s faces in a way that is relevant to the topic they are twittering about. I’m working on the theory that if I give enough people enough free laughs, then some of them will think of me when they are asked to recommend a comic entertainer for an awards presentation, gala dinner, sales conference or product launch. (Well, that’s the theory anyway!)