Feeling twitterpated

A conversation is going on about you somewhere on the various social media outlets. How are you going to participate?

Once, when I was in the throes of young love during my high school years, bounded with a kind of breathless excitement and wound to a frenzy, my mother said that I was “twitterpated.” It’s one of those old-fashioned words that shows up in first-edition Disney movies and ’50s teen-girl novels. Today, as a marketing executive in an increasingly complex world of social media, I find myself feeling much the same way—and the word applies perfectly albeit in a completely different fashion. The burst of online marketing outlets, like social media, blogs, e-mail marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on have put pressure on both marketers and those being marketed to figure out how to keep up, stay relevant and make this ever-larger list of options relevant and useful. I have been left reeling, breathless and eager to engage. I’m not the only one. Marketers big and small are hopping onto the bandwagon.

Witness as an example two wildly popular YouTube videos that were on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum of marketing good and evil: the Domino’s employee video and McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish video. The Domino’s video (the topic of which shall remain unnamed, ’cause let’s be real, who hasn’t heard about it?) illustrated the kind of urban myths that are the fodder for jokes about what will happen to ill-behaved customers. The result: extreme loss of business for one franchisee and ongoing unemployment and criminal charges for the videographer and primary subject. It’s a prime example of a powerful social medium being used for evil rather than good—or even any degree of useful.

On the other hand, what I would deem to be one of the more annoying uploads ever made, McDonald’s flouncing wall flounder, generated roughly the same one million page views that the disgracing Dominos video did. (For that matter, the apology and explanation video issued by Domino’s CEO is currently nearing the one million mark as well.) During the SuperBowl, a Denny’s commercial promised a free Grand Slam, something heralded as a clever, boot-strappy tactic, despite the fact that the promise happened during a very expensive traditional media buy.

In two of those three cases, the company had the wheel—and in the third reacted quickly to something they didn’t set into motion—and that’s more often the case. It’s customers who are having conversations and voicing opinions (both good and bad) about you, and you can either get involved, be a hub for the conversation or stand on the wayside. And the more complicated thing is that it isn’t a case of if you build it, they will come. How do restaurateurs add the upkeep and maintenance of blogs, Tweets and Facebook pages—to say nothing of reaching out to this evolving but increasingly important channel to proactively spread the word? That, my friends, is a question for the ages.

Like any other marketing channel, organizations have started to pop up to address this evolving need. One such company, Tastecasting, stages tasting events among well-networked bloggers, Tweeters, You Tubers, Flickr’ers (you get the picture) who have a happening of sorts at local restaurants, bakeries and other food outlets and then broadcast the event to their networks.
Of course, there are a few local restaurants that have already managed to prod those online conversations in a proactive way all by themselves. Take Punch Neapolitan Pizza as an example. On a hunt for the online menu recently, I stumbled across the Punch Blog along with the Flickr, Facebook and Twitter presence. The blog mentioned a $3 classic pizza coupon. After hitting print and trundling over to the Northeast Minneapolis location, I realized that I wasn’t the only one surfing these channels. The line during the early part of the lunch hour snaked out the door and weaved toward the pick-up-only parking spot I’d pulled into. They are clearly working the channels with great success by showing up, doing what they know and doing it well. Just thinking about it, makes me feel downright twitterpated.