Susie’s Shortbreads in Halifax make delicious baked goods. Or so I’ve been told. I’m vegan, so I didn’t pay too much attention to them. I didn’t even follow them on Twitter (why torture myself). But of course I knew who they were because Haligonians are in love with them.
One day, though, everything changed. I saw people keep mentioning me in their retweets of Susie’s announcing that they were testing some vegan cupcakes. My friends kept telling me I just had to go try one.
So, off I went (in the middle of a work-day afternoon, of course), walking the few blocks up the road to the store. I asked the friendly baker if they had any vegan cupcakes left.
She said, “are you the person everyone on Twitter kept telling to come here?”
I was little surprised. I’m not used to the Twitter personalities of a business to be that connected to the in-store personalities. You always hope that’s how businesses operate, but we all know that’s simply not how these things usually play out.
They so often map to different parts of the operation. One side is focused on people, the other side is focused on the product.
But good social media is a symptom of good business. People who care about their customers and want to engage with them take to the internet naturally. They want to reach out, and they’re good at it.
Setting up a website and tweeting the hell out of your latest promotion won’t improve your customer service, it won’t make people like you more.
Good social media doesn’t transform a bad business, it just keeps a few employees busy.
