Twitter for better business

I recently sat in on a Marketing with Twitter webinar and have all but been convinced that Twitter is important and I need to capitalize on it. I took a think and realized that the best place for me to Twitter is at work, mostly because I’m in front of a computer all day so it’s easy and accessible. I tried it out today and it became very valuable tool not just to spread around links and the good word of The Toast, but as a work tool.

Tuesday was Drink Pink Day at Wendy’s, a campaign I was involved with by designing/building the web site. The whole concept was to promote breast cancer research/awareness by telling people to buy a pink Frosty at Wendy’s and they would donate money to charity. A good cause and a concept that Wendy’s latched on to - at least in lip service.

We all worked very hard to get things setup in a very short amount of time. Wendy’s even asked me for the Drink Pink logo so they could print in-store banners, etc. Well, to do my part I sent out a Twitter this morning with a link to the web site.

Much to my surprise one of my followers replied back and said they’d go to Wendy’s to help out the cause. So right there, Twitter 1, Brian 0. Well, she went to Wendy’s, came back, and Twittered back at me that the people at Wendy’s barely had the foggiest idea about Drink Pink Day. So while the news was unfortunate (and slightly upsetting), Twitter provided me a means to communicate with someone I would otherwise have no means of getting feedback from. Rapid customer response. Twitter 2, Brian 0.

It was somewhat upsetting to see that Wendy’s had dropped the perverbial ball. One report said they saw a hand-written “Drink Pink Day” sign at one Wendy’s. After work we went to our local store to find a simple Word print out at the cash register. Not exactly a fancy in-store sign, but better than a hand-written one. But then the best surprise was as we left, we saw that on one side of the giant Wendy’s sign it said, “Drink Pink Day - Buy a Frosty to donate a $1″ and so on.

So while the ideal scenario didn’t exactly happen, it was neat to see the effort did trickle down, even if only in the slightest. And here I was worried that my crappy ass logo would end up in front of hundreds of people. But there’s always next year.