James Richardson

The use of twitter by Small business is really a no brainer, but is still something that is underutilized in this country.

Being a free medium, its a practical gold mine for communicating and engaging existing and new customers in a very ‘social media’.

This week, I was encouraged to see a local favorite of mine ‘Cafe Italia’ jump on the horse, and start a fun and simple twitter campaign, to promote their restaurant, and encourage new diners to try them on the busy and competitive Lygon Street strip, in Carlton, Victoria.

Quick facts
Twitter ID: twitter.com/cafeitalia3053
Following: 559
Followers: 216
Average Tweets per day: 3.7

Cafe Italia is a an Italian restaurant located on University street, Carlton, which is a side street off the infamous Lygon street ‘Little Italy’ precinct in Melbourne, Victoria.

This past week, Cafe Italia have taken to promoting a special ‘Pasta and Gnocchi’ celebration, to highlight their fresh pasta and hand made gnocchi, and have been doing a stand up job at that.

Some of the important factors that Cafe Italia have been getting right are:

Casual Conversations
Cafe Italia have been reaching out to those who @ reply them, RT them, or follow them and communicating to them in a natural way.

Have purpose
Cafe Italia had a clear purpose and agenda for their use on twitter. By having something in mind when you are using twitter for business, you can slowly work towards your end goal – whatever that is!

Make your followers happy
Cafe Italia ran a competition throughout the week, entered simply by RT’ing a promotional message about the restaurant. Having giveaways and freebies for fans costs you very little, gets a customer in the door, and creates buzz in the wider community.

Although these guys should be applauded for taking the plunge and doing so much right, they can certainly do a some things to further enhance their profile.

Here are two ideas I would recommend right away to these guys:

1. Promote Social Media profiles on website
Cafe Italia has a website which is looking a little tired, and has no social media integration. If you are a small business and using social media to build your profile, interlink EVERYTHING.

If someone goes to your website, make sure they find out about your twitter and facebook profiles, and vice versa.

2. Customize your profile
Although there are HEAPS, of really feature rich and cool Twitter desktop and mobile apps out there, fact is, most people still use Twitter.com to browse and reply to tweets.

Make sure your twitter background has the following distinct features:

• Company logo/Image: Make sure you have an identifying image for your business on the right sidebar of the profile
• Links and contact details: Although these are not clickable-visually they are a great call to action for the customer
• Appropriate color scheme: Make sure that your profile is attractive, and most importantly readable. Twitter allows you to choose your text colors, border colors and heaps more – so try and be sensible in your choices.

If you are a small business, I encourage you to embrace, or at least dip your toe in the social media waters.

If you are in the area, Cafe Italia is a great place for dinner in Carlton. Visit the website or call them on 9347 0638

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