Help an absolute beginner tweet (for a business)
March 24, 2015 11:28 PM   Subscribe

I've just opened a small restaurant/take out spot in Tokyo, and I've been told that Twitter is a lot more popular here than Facebook among (especially young) Japanese people, and that I should join. So, I did. Now what? Is there a Twitter for Beginners guide? Advice for connecting facebook, twitter, and my sorely unused instagram? Unspoken rules of etiquette?
posted by Ghidorah to Computers & Internet (10 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Use a program like Hootsuite to schedule your tweets for the week. Set them at specific times of day when you think people might be hungry and schedule them maybe 2-4 hours apart during the work day. Include things like daily specials, special events, pictures of food items. Add a hashtag to everything #Yummy, #Tasty, #Foodporn or whatever, search for popular hashtags that are used in your area. Start 'following' other restaurants in your area, the food section from the local paper, famous chefs, other food bloggers etc.

You can use Hootsuite for Instagram & Facebook accounts too. It's pretty straight forward, so spend an hour setting it up and learning how to use it and go from there.
posted by Toddles at 4:04 AM on March 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Congrats on your new venture. :)

What Toddles said. Look for your community and their hashtags. Does your neighborhood have a tag? Use it to tweet why people should stop by right now.
posted by zennie at 4:07 AM on March 25, 2015


Also, most people don't realize from the outside, or even when they first start, that there is a private message system. Both people have to be following each other on order to send private messages, so if you have a problem with a customer you need to follow them and get them to follow you back in order to handle it privately. Then you can get their details. You can also post a phone number and tell them to call, but be careful with that.
posted by zennie at 4:13 AM on March 25, 2015


Best answer: Consider signage inside your restaurant for patrons to follow you, perhaps by tweeting daily specials.

"Follow us on Twitter to receive daily soup specials."

Encourage your patrons to tweet about you too.
posted by bricksNmortar at 4:49 AM on March 25, 2015


When you create a business, you give it a certain vibe, its own personality. Facebook and Twitter is your business' fun little brother. It's okay to get a little goofy on it. Throw in a joke every now and again. The main rule of thumb for a business is to not tweet too much. You don't want to bother people- just remind them that you are there and you are interesting enough to pay attention to.
posted by myselfasme at 5:15 AM on March 25, 2015


Best answer: Like Toddles says, use popular hashtags, memes, whatever is trending on Twitter among your target audience. Shorter tweets tend to do better; you don't need to max out the 140-character limit every time. Since your business is a restaurant, be helpful and respond to tweets at your restaurant with questions/comments/compliments/complaints about the services. I also tend to follow restaurants/cafes on Twitter because I want to know when they have special deals, dishes, and events, so I think that's the main thing you want to focus your tweets on.

Don't bother with connecting up Twitter and Facebook. Definitely connect Instagram with both, so that your posts on Instagram automatically post to Twitter/Facebook, which is a setting on Instagram. Use hashtags on Instagram so they show up in the feed for those hashtags on Twitter. You're a restaurant owner so you'll want to take lots of pictures of food!
posted by capricorn at 7:56 AM on March 25, 2015


You can use something like Hootsuite to manage, schedule, and respond to posts. Please don't use whatever app auto-posts your Facebook content to Twitter, because it basically truncates the content and redirects the user to Facebook.

Definitely post food pics and daily specials. Also any news from your industry, city, and neighborhood that you think your followers would like.
posted by radioamy at 8:43 AM on March 25, 2015


Best answer: I am still trying to figure out Twitter myself. I suggest you do a search for articles on hashtags and how to use them (example).

Here is the Twitter support center. It has some basic info you should probably look through.

I strongly suggest you promptly customize the profile. Put in a profile pic AND a background pic. They are different sizes and should depict different things. If you have a website (or facebook account or whatever), put the link in the profile under "website." Put it there because twitter puts serious limits on how many characters you can use to describe yourself. You want a good and professional description.

Then follow a few other accounts that seem relevant. For example, search for the name of the city you are in and find twitter accounts that are topical for that city without being a competitor and without being too controversial.

Even if all you initially do is retweet things, WHAT you retweet can influence who follows you. So you might want to retweet some things for the region you are in to attract locals.

Find someone whose profile you really like and whose tweets you really like and try to learn from them.
posted by Michele in California at 11:24 AM on March 25, 2015


If you did nothing but tweet your daily specials, that would be enough to get me following you (assuming I lived close enough to visit, I mean).
posted by Lexica at 6:54 PM on March 25, 2015


Best answer: If you are going to use scheduled tweets (which I'm not fond of, but others recommend) then be sure to cancel them if/when some horrible news breaks. There's no better way to look clueless than to be tweeting happy little messages when a tragedy has occurred, and Twitter is overwhelmed by news of that tragedy.

Images are always good in tweets; fortunately, as a restaurant, you should have no problem taking photos to include.

Remember that Twitter is social media, so be social. Reply to the people who tweet at you (using @your-restaurant's-Twitter-handle in the message) with questions or comments. If there are other businesses nearby that you like, follow them and consider re-tweeting some of their tweets that you like.

Look at a number of other Japanese businesses to see how they use Twitter. Some things might be culturally specific, and any advice from those of us unfamiliar with that culture might miss something important.
posted by jeri at 11:54 PM on March 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


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