Have you heard about the Dallas social media salad mêlée?
(Yes, this post has nothing to do with associations, events, or meetings. And yes, I’m a few days from a major event but I wanted to take a break from meeting minutiae. However, this post does illustrate how two businesses took take advantage of the social media sphere!)
Back to my story.
Did you hear about the social media salad struggle? Two rival salad restaurants got into a social media scuffle over who could get more traction from Twitter and Facebook offering salads named “The Joe.”
The Joe? Yep, “The Joe,” in honor of Joe Flowers, my co-worker, @unhatched who also tweets for work as @JoeNeedsDental.
Joe is a Gen Y, geek lovin’, design dashing dude and confessed foodie-holic. He loves his salads and frequents two local salad eateries on a regular basis: Greenz and Snappy Salads. He’s also a snarky Twitter Tweep with some clever tweatise
The Backstory According To Joe
Joe’s been working with the owners of Snappy Salads trying to convince them of being a little more aggressive with their social media marketing. He’s even offered to do a Tweetup at Snappy Salads and guaranteed to get a crowd in their door on a typical night of their lowest sales. Snappy Salads has been slow to respond or take Joe up on his offer. I would even go as far as say that Snappy Salads isn’t drinking the social media kool-aid…yet.
This week, Joe tweeted from his personal account a “Did You Know Tweet.” Did U Know That Snappy Salads would deliver to offices for lunch?
Greenz Restaurants was monitoring the web and intercepted the tweet. They responded to Joe that they also delivered.
Did you catch that organization leaders? They were monitoring the Twittersphere watching for people in Dallas who used the word salad. They saw an opportunity to engage with a person about salads and watch what happened…
Joe, being one never to miss an opportunity to engage in social media rivalry, responded with a one-upmanship of tweets:
Ooooh, it appears we have a battle between @snappysalads and @greenzsalads for group orders. . .first one to name a salad ‘the joe’ wins 
Snappy responded with:
Both restaurants took him up on the offer although @greenzsalads beat @snappysalads to the harvest. Greenz immediately offered their traditional southwest shrimp salad called “The Joe” for 15% off on Wednesday, September 9, one day after the discussion began. Snappy said they would name their next feature salad “The Joe.”
Greenz took the friendly rivalry to the bank and social media marketing space. They wrote on their Facebook fan page about the Wednesday special “The Joe.” They tweeted about it several times. Other Dallasites picked up the tweet and RT’d it. I posted the special on my Facebook page and begin tweeting about it too.
Where was Snappy Salads? Being a little pokey instead of snappy? Picking lettuce in the garden? Washing their spinach?
Well, many of us watched as the Twitter tussle continued. Although, Greenz beat Snappy Salad back into their farm fields.
As Paul Harvey Would Say, “The Rest Of The Story.”
Joe went to eat lunch at one of the Greenz locations in honor of “The Joe” salad. Look at what welcomed him at the entrance.
Amazingly, Greenz had the same welcome at two of their locations.
When Joe entered and claimed to be “The Joe” of “The Joe,” the people behind the counter said, “Yeah, right. You and five others today!” Interestingly enough, “The Joe” was a landslide hit for Greenz with many people, including myself, ordering it for a meal.
Moral Of The Story
Don’t knock social media until you’ve given it a whirl and planted it’s seeds in your garden. With the right offer and customer engagement, your customer will become your evangelist and you will reap a harvest.
Confession
Our office frequents both Snappy Salads and Greenz for lunch. And, I admit to being an avid evangelist of both dining experiences as well. I also did not get any free food for writing this post and I can boldly state that no gardens were harmed in the process of this writing.
