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Posts Tagged ‘D’Amico & Sons’

UPDATE: I just Unlocked the SuperStar Badge on FourSquare. hooray.

Posted in Communication Tools, Social Media Marketing, Virtual and Real World Synergy, tagged , , , , on May 17, 2011 | 5 Comments »

JUNE 3, 2011. I was reading my favorite local food blog The Heavy Table about a new St. Paul restaurant, the Asian Deli and noticed something: 

Ever curious I clicked it and saw this: 

How cool. Now I have something saved in “the Cloud” aka some server in cyber space to remind me of a new restaurant that I’d like to try.

 

 

Forgive me if I’m not jumping for joy, but as a consumer* I’m not seeing a whole lot value in FourSquare. In 50 checkins, I’ve only found 1 or 2 specials.

How does that increase my loyalty?

* Maybe it’s because of who I am and where I go, i.e. my target market.

Today, I checked in at my son’s baseball game. No specials there, not even a bathroom. Yesterday, I checked in at a park — again no bathroom and not tips either. Last week I checked in at a public library — what a great way to promote services such as daily book rentals and free c-book downloads. But the library didn’t offer me a deal on that or even mention these great services in the tips section.

What deals have I unlocked? Mmmmmhmmm, hard to remember. Oh yes, 10% off at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Gift shop, but I didn’t use it because I was shopping at the special Art in Bloom shop across the hall and they didn’t honor it. What else….an undisclosed discount at Macy’s via Checkin for Facebook. That was too much work to figure out what it applied to, so I didn’t use that one either.

Frankly, I find Foursquare a time and data-plan waster. Maybe if I had an unlimited data plan with my smart phone, I’d think differently, but now, every time I check in, I have to remember to close out the Foursquare app.

This is not to say I don’t see the potential in location-based loyalty programs. Foursquare is a great tool to get creative with. Imagine, as a business you could speak directly to your loyal, tech savvy customers when they walked in the door. Wouldn’t you want to take the time daily or even weekly to say something about your business to them or reward them for their patronage? Foursquare doesn’t have to be just for frequent diners and club hoppers. Every organization has something to say, this is just another tool that is under utilized.

What should Foursquare do? Print a billion window decals and pass them out to small businesses — they’ve already got little Facebook logos in their windows.

At least I’m the mayor of D’Amico & Sons – Arts Cafè at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

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Hey D’Amico & Sons, it’s “Buon Appetito!” (update)

Posted in Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Word of Mouth, tagged , , , , , on April 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »

The other day, I was chatting with my colleague, Sarah Rand, about Twitter use. Many of our traditional baccalaureate students – young women who entered college directly from high school – don’t use Twitter nor see a reason too. Facebook takes enough of their time as it is. That makes sense to me – why use Twitter unless you get something from it? For me it’s a great way to peruse the local news in 5 minutes every morning, check on issues and industries I follow, and find experts in my local marketing field. Another colleague, Scott Pakudaitis, has had success rectifying customer service issues via Twitter.

So last night, I decided to conduct an experiment.

I was dining with my family at D’Amico & Sons – awesome cafeteria-style Italian food where kids eat free on Sunday nights with their parents. Standing in line looking at the posted menu, I noticed a small sign on the wall that said:

Buono Appetito

It caught my eye because “buono” should have been “buon” before “appetito.” While I no longer have an Italian grandmother to correct my grammar, my Italian’s good enough to spot a pretty obvious error like that.

The restaurant was swamped, so why bother pointing this out to anyone scurrying around filling wine glasses and clearing tables when I had social media at my fingertips. So while waiting for our dinner to arrive, I Tweeted and checked in via FourSquare and Facebook to point out their error.

Again, this is an experiment. I like D’Amico & Sons, I’m not trying to make them look bad, I’m just curious to see which medium they respond to first.

Fourteen hours later on a Monday morning, I haven’t heard anything. Let’s see if I do by the end of the day.

UPDATE:  48 hours later (Tuesday night.) I just found their Twitter account:  http://twitter.com/#!/DAmicoandSons and re-Tweeted my message. I’m not impressed with the iPhone Twitter app — sometimes I can find something, sometimes I can’t. On the App version, I couldn’t find their account, from my Macbook, I had no problem.

UPDATE:  Wednesday Morning. A lovely “Grazie” from D’Amico & Sons with the reply that because I had not used @DAmicoandSons for my initial Tweet, they didn’t get the message.

My response? You have to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Checkin, and Foursquare for your name or some derivation of it — case in point:  St. Kate’s, St. Catherine University, College of St. Catherine all with or without a period after “St.” assuming, of course that “Saint” is abbreviated to “St.”

Grade for D’Amico:  “B”

  • They responded in kind (i.e. I Tweeted and that’s how they replied) to at least one of my medium, but I wonder what all those patrons on Facebook and Foursquare think? Maybe that D’Amico doesn’t read their comments…?
  • They used humor (the grazie)
  • Their response was fairly timely, only 2 1/2 days later, although I’m not sure if that’s because a friend’s sister works there…
  • No interaction via Fourquare, Facebook, Facebook Checkin, or evidence of a Google Alert with some derivation of their name

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