"I am 100% convinced this is not true. I'm sure if I (with 15 twitter followers) had posted something similar there would be no chance of something similar happening."
Well is one of your followers Morton's? Do you eat there all the time?
Morten's invested in some 'free' PR here. Basically they know this guy is legit because he has a history with them, further they can estimate is future business 'stream' since they know how often he eats there. A simple affinity card where you get 'stars' for each visit and a free meal on your tenth or whatever, works exactly this way.
There are three HUGE things to learn from this story:
1) In order to know whose important you have to know who your customers are, it helps if you can tie a customer identity to a social network identity.
2) Keeping frequent customers happy brings in business because whenever they are in the conversation 'Where should we [consume/use/buy] [service/product]?' they recommend your product or service.
3) It might cost $100,000 for a 'small' advertising run or PR stunt, something like this probably costs less than $100. In terms of customer acquisition costs its hugely efficient relative to broader and necessicarily more dilute activities.
So I don't doubt for a minute that Mortens got their money's worth here. And I don't think it mattered at all that the guy has 100K followers. I think they looked at him as a great customer and this as a low cost opportunity for PR. They seized it, and hit one out of the park.
Well is one of your followers Morton's? Do you eat there all the time?
Morten's invested in some 'free' PR here. Basically they know this guy is legit because he has a history with them, further they can estimate is future business 'stream' since they know how often he eats there. A simple affinity card where you get 'stars' for each visit and a free meal on your tenth or whatever, works exactly this way.
There are three HUGE things to learn from this story:
1) In order to know whose important you have to know who your customers are, it helps if you can tie a customer identity to a social network identity.
2) Keeping frequent customers happy brings in business because whenever they are in the conversation 'Where should we [consume/use/buy] [service/product]?' they recommend your product or service.
3) It might cost $100,000 for a 'small' advertising run or PR stunt, something like this probably costs less than $100. In terms of customer acquisition costs its hugely efficient relative to broader and necessicarily more dilute activities.
So I don't doubt for a minute that Mortens got their money's worth here. And I don't think it mattered at all that the guy has 100K followers. I think they looked at him as a great customer and this as a low cost opportunity for PR. They seized it, and hit one out of the park.