I. Love. This.
If you’re still not sure about Twitter’s potential as a small business marketing tool, consider BakerTweet. It’s a tool/system that allows bakeries to send tweets announcing when something yummy, hot, and fresh has just come out of the oven. Subscribers to the bakery’s Twitter feed get the instant alert, and can rush in to buy their favorite treats straight out of the oven.
The bakery uses the BakerTweet web site to pre-populate the products and the text they want to send out via Twitter. When the baking is done, they spend about 10 seconds dialing up the right item, hit a button, and the system sends the message out on Twitter.
This video explains it better:
Now, this is geared for bakeries … but you can obviously see restaurants, sandwich shops, cafés, and even retail stores using a system like this to send out all kinds of announcements on Twitter. (“Turkey Club Sandwich, $2 off next 30 minutes!” … “A shipment of Nintendo Wiis has arrived and is available now in the games dept.”) I don’t think I blogged about it, but the Kogi Korean BBQ in Los Angeles is doing something similar — using Twitter to alert locals to where the truck will be parked and selling food. What makes both examples work is that it’s all permission-basd marketing. The people you’re communicating with have already indicated that they want to be advertised to.
With Twitter, and some creative thinking, the possibilities are almost endless.
April 13, 2009 - 9:20 am
Thanks for sharing that, Matt. It is great. Hmmm….could twitter lead us all to endless calories? Between Kogi and bakery goods…..I can see the calories mounting.
All those examples are terrific. Those creative uses are super.
April 13, 2009 - 11:07 am
Matt,
This is freakin’ awesome. That’s all I got.
April 13, 2009 - 12:35 pm
The combination mash of the real-time device and the Twitter interface is an exciting one and could be repurposed for dozens of industries. Small businesses such as coffee shops, kiosks, dry-cleaners immediately come to mind, but just about anyone that wants to take advantage of product launches, sales, etc. The marketing possibilities are endless.
April 13, 2009 - 12:46 pm
It’s official. Twitter is now being used to kill us. Nice find, M2.
April 13, 2009 - 12:52 pm
I like it! One more reason to setup yet another twitter account and do some marketing from the front desk.
April 13, 2009 - 12:56 pm
I can just see it now:
“Fresh Krispy Kremes in 3… 2… 1 – GO!”
Hello, end of civilization.
April 13, 2009 - 1:01 pm
Now it’s time for someone to build an iPhone App that does the same thing but for any kind of business whether it’s a bakery or not.
We’re all doomed…
April 13, 2009 - 1:39 pm
Waiting for the “Free Drinks” Tweet to show up…
April 13, 2009 - 2:44 pm
Very cool, Matt. May cause car accidents and traffic jams as people rush to get those just-baked goods!
April 13, 2009 - 4:27 pm
I love it, Matt — the rise of the Twitter Economy! All these satellite apps revolving around the Twitter platform, and new experimental ways of creating visibility for businesses, is wonderful.
Not only is Twitter great for staying connected with family and friends, and for any use you want to make of it — but there’s a business purpose too, and small businesses can justify it.
April 17, 2009 - 2:04 pm
Great idea. I am going to recommend this to my local sandwich shop to try and see if it makes a difference.
April 29, 2009 - 7:38 am
easily the most creative & interesting use of twitter I’ve seen so far !
April 20, 2010 - 5:53 pm
Don’t know how I missed this when it was published nearly 1 year ago, but thanks to your flashback post I caught it.
All I can say is what a brilliant idea! So many potential applications here!