Food For Thought: Day Twenty-Four

We found a great example of a business using social media skills brilliantly, and it's in a field that is not typically known for networking of this flavor. Green Aisle Grocery, a small, organic gourmet food purveyor in a hipster up and coming neighborhood of South Philly, has developed a business model that rivals the proverbial sliced bread (which, in their case would be made from locally grown grains in small batches by artisan bakers). The part of the model that interests us (besides the amazing inventory that tempts these two foodies sorely) is the innovative approach to moving their merchandise, much of which has a very short shelf life. It seems so obvious now....immediacy is key, so Green Aisle Grocery Tweets. They have over 700 followers, and these followers are engaged, active participants in Green Aisle's operation.

Tweets keep customers apprised of the newest, the freshest, the most precious, the limited supplies and the promotions that are on offer all day every day. Recent tweets announced a special sale on milk, as well as a delivery of Berks County raspberries, first of the season, and what to look forward in the produce section on Friday (zucchini blossoms!). Frequently they get their hands on something really special from a local chef--Zahav's hummos anyone? They tweet it, and plugged-in foodies scramble to Passyunk Ave in the hopes of getting their hands on a gustatory gem.

In addition to the clever use of Twitter, Green Aisle's dynamic website showcases their inventory, keeps customers updated on supplies of specific items, features frequent plats du jour recipes that utlize the recently arrived merchandise--garlic ramps or merguez sausage, say. This creates desire and demand, and helps their followers discover new and delicious ways to consume their offerings.

I had dinner with two seasoned vets on Philly's food scene last night and described this place. They were both aghast and characterized Green Aisle's approach as "sheer genius."

Now I'm off to buy some of this chocolate cherry candied almond cookie dough before they run out. Bon Appetit!
Posted by: Keri

Day Twelve: Internet Explorer - Outcast

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

Winston Churchill

Before leaping into this project, we attended an industry seminar on blogging. The presenters one and all basically advised: "To understand blogging, you must blog."

So we did.

At this same event, some bright spark asked about browsers; apparently the majority of peeps these days use Mozilla's Firefox (yes, even on PCs)...not good ol' Internet Explorer. One presenter put us all on the spot and asked disdainfully..."Is anyone still using Internet Explorer?"
One brave lass put up her hand. The audience chortled under their collective breath. (We sat on our hands, rather than walk into the trap.)

Days later, we switched to Firefox; obviously the cool people use that. Weeks later, have to admit, still not enamoured of Firefox, but continue to use because the "cool" people use it. (We promised our kids not to use that "C" word under any circumstance...apparently we're too old to peddle that term, along with "dude" and other such favorites.)

We digress.

Having learned another browser, it was disconcerting to find out that the coolest of cool browsers these days is TweetDeck. Heaven forbid. It's heavy going keeping abreast of all this newfangled technology, but TweetDeck is mesmerising...

We've fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

TweetDeck looks like the control panel in a jumbo jet. It's a giant four-columned dashboard which manages all your social media. Twitter itself is a little Disney-esque for our liking and you have to move between screens to read incoming news alerts and then post a message, for example. TweetDeck is clever because you can see everything at a glance, deleting, cutting and pasting, clicking through, tracking people or companies. The program links you to apps like Flickr, FourSquare as well as the obvious -- Twitter. It's like Winston Churchill's war room.

Best feature we've found so far is the facility to autoshrink tweets and translate them into one of any of the world's most popular languages. (I started with Afrikaans, and stopped myself at Cantonese...could spend all day doing this.) More to the point there is an option to schedule posts to multiple social media. Haven't quite figured out how to do this yet, but before the day is over we plan to do so.


Dare you to translate this sentence into Galician and tweet to us from TweetDeck! I'll c u when u get there:





Coolio...(sorry kids).

Posted by: Claire

Day Eight: S.ave O.ur S.ouls

We know it's happening; things are a-changing round here.

Friday's tweet shared our excitement about a clever software program, Tweetdeck, which enables you to manage all your social networking posts from a single dashboard.

Did we really just write that?

Not only can we parlay the jargon...we have taken to fantasizing about acquiring an iPhone, or the even sexier iPad. Think how much more glamorous / sexy / cool (strike as appropriate), we'd be if we had one or both of those..?

Howzat? What about that Coach bag we've been saving up for?

Boy, how we've changed.




We even threw a garden party, inviting respective husbands, friends and neighbors and found people comparing notes on their social networking experiences. (The majority of punters were pretty sceptical by the way, especially on its relevance to business or for providing professional services.)

A lone voice in the wilderness was a social networking guru working mainly for consumer brands as part of a collective of creatives, fondly described as a "collaboratory". Her comments are worth considering.

Just remember to think of Social Media as the Wild West. Other than the basics (how to twitter, how to use tweetdeck, Google Analytics etc, there really aren't any set rules, which makes it sometimes very frustrating. Just stay fluid and enjoy the ride. She also added: Working with Social Media is also a bit like working with Spaghetti. You throw it at the wall and see what sticks...

Spaghetti and the Wild West in the same breath. We can feel a very poor segue creeping up on us...

Do you know the origin of the term "Spaghetti Western"..? These low budget movies, starring American actors, were so called because in order to save on costs they were mostly filmed in the mountains of Italy or Spain - hence the association with spaghetti.

Another interesting, and vaguely related factoid, Ugly Americans - that devastatingly satirical cartoon on Comedy Central - will return to our screens in the Fall; see the cartoon above for a taste (pun intended).

See, we told you you'd learn lots reading this blog.

Posted by: Claire