Found Local

In February this year, when a meagrely Twitter population of self-promoters and internet junkies was suddenly invaded by hoards and hoards of regular people, something quite special happened.

A community appeared which represented a reasonable cross-section of society, happily donating their thoughts and feelings to a bottomless database of information, all instantly accessible through Twitter Search.

Twitter & the collective consciousness

With more than 10 million users (even if 90% of tweets come from 10% of users), Twitter Search provides a fascinating window into people’s thoughts, beliefs and attitudes, about pretty much any subject in the public eye.

Whether it’s the latest Susan Boyle revelation, shock success of the BNP or simply the fact that it’s Friday (Twitter’s trending topics currently lists the acronym ‘TGIF’), if something is happening, people will be tweeting about it.

Reacting to complaints

Some companies have already made good use of the opportunities available through Twitter. Comcast’s director of digital care, Frank Eliason, regularly searches Twitter for the word Comcast (and, allegedly, ‘Comcrap’), to react directly to any customers’ issues that they happened to have mentioned on Twitter.

Wholefoods also reacts to complaints on Twitter, with replies including the cheerily personal: ‘Sorry to hear that your soup was cold. Let me know which store it was and I’ll see if I can get you in touch with the store team leader.’

Tweeting special offers to followers

Another way to engage with customers on Twitter is to build a community with some sort of incentive to check what you’re tweeting, and to respond to their questions to reinforce the connection.

What should you do?

While it may not be appropriate for all companies to react to their customers’ tweets, it can never hurt to just take a look for you own brand name and find out what kind of Twitter-press it’s getting.

Ideally, though, you’ll think of something so brilliant and fresh to do on Twitter that your brand name will become part of Twitter history and gain infamy simply through endless Twitter articles like this one.

Social Networks: Myyearbook, Perfspot, and Plenty of fish.

The Applebee company was founded by Bill and TJ Palmer  in Atlanta, Georgia. Bill and TJ wanted to own a restaurant with high quality food, great service and reasonable prices.  In addition, they wanted their business to mesh with the locality, and become part of the local community.  In late 1980, they opened the doors of what would become many Applebee’s restaurants.

Shortly afterward they launched their second restaurant in Atlanta .  As the restaurant gained popularity , Bill and TJ decided they were going to take the concept to the next level through nation wideexpansion.  They sold their restaurantconcept to W. R. Grace and Co., while staying on board to help run and further their concept.  The Palmers became Applebee’s franchisees in 1985 and today own 40 Applebee’s in Atlanta.  By moving forward in this path, they were able to take advantage of the leverage offered by W.R. Grace and Co to springboard their neighborhood restaurant into the national limelight.

In 1988, Abe Gustin and John Hamra bought the Applebee’s chain from W. R. Grace. The name was ammended to Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar, creating the “neighborhood” name that was the base for the original restaurant .

Applebee’s completed an initial public offering of its common stock in 1989, going from small neighborhood restaurant to a public company in less than ten years.

Before the IPO in 1988 , there were fiftyfour locations . Now Applebee’s is one of the worlds largest chains of restaurants with over 1500 locations.  It is so popular, you can usually find Applebees coupons in most Sunday papers , in addition a number of online locations that can be found with a general search also offer Applebees nutrition information.

Applebee’s maintains a wide variety of food choices, reasonable prices and top notch service.  It’s really no wonder it is one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, and is expected to maintain their status as one of the best in the business .