South Shore merchants use Twitter to spread the word
By Steve Adams – The Patriot Ledger
When the newly-opened Abby Park restaurant in Milton prepared to add lunch service this week, it announced the news on its Twitter page. The restaurant just opened this month and already has 149 people following its “tweets,” the 140-character messages that are the standard mode of communication on Twitter.
“Marketing has taken on a new face,” restaurant owner Vance Welch said. “We’re looking at Twitter as we build a base.”
Twitter hasn’t yet found a way to profit off of its addictive social media site, despite reaching more than 20 million users monthly. But a growing number of South Shore businesses are finding a way to raise their profiles using Twitter’s free bully pulpit.
For the Greater Boston Running Company, Twitter is an opportunity to build an ongoing dialogue with customers and attract new ones.
Sam Pitts, manager of the company’s store at Derby Street Shoppes in Hingham, tweets several times a day. Some promote store products, but others link to news about the running community in Greater Boston or other topical items.
Giving a newsy flair to the site makes it more likely that people will visit, Pitts said. On Wednesday, he linked to a USA Today story about health risks associated with flip-flops. “Play it safe and pick up some new Reefs at the store 
” he added. Another post linked to a review of runners’ watches on the New York Times’ Gadgetwise blog.
“We try to post information that people are interested in,” said Pitts, who has 280 “followers,” Twitter parlance for those who elect to receive all tweets from a user. “We’ve actually had customers come in the store because of what we’ve been doing on there.”
To recruit followers, Pitts searches Twitter for people who are following other running sites in the Boston area. Often, they reciprocate and begin following the store’s site.
“We get direct access to a customer base in terms of getting our product out there, and we get to see what people are talking about,” Pitts said.
Perhaps no sector of the retail industry in the Boston area is taking advantage of Twitter more than restaurants.
Anny Deirmenjian, an account manager for Image Unlimited Communications in Winchester, tweets on behalf of clients such as Burtons Grill in Hingham.
“People feel a real connection with social media, Deirmenjian said. “They have a part in it and we try to do updates via Twitter every day if we can.”
Promoting celebrity sightings – either in advance or after the fact – is a popular strategy in the restaurant industry.
Abby Park recently tweeted that New England Cable News’ “TV Diner” would be filming an upcoming episode at the 160-seat restaurant.
After a newspaper gossip column reported that New Kids on the Block singer Jordan Knight was spotted dining at Burton’s, Deirmenjian posted a link to the story.
“It’s a good response because the people can follow what’s going on at the restaurant,” she said. “Maybe next time we’ll do it as it’s happening.”
Followers of Abby Park on Twitter can expect nearly daily updates, mainly on dinner specials.
The Twitter page augments Abby Park’s regular Web site, which invited visitors to sign up to receive e-mail alerts. More than 2,000 people registered before the restaurant opened, Welch said.
But Twitter users tend to check their accounts more frequently, Welch said, giving it an advantage over Facebook.
Twitter also is serving as a new outlet for help-wanted ads. The Kings entertainment complex that is opening a new location at Legacy Place in Dedham next month announced a job fair on its Twitter page this week.
“We plan on ramping up our Twitter presence as we get closer to launch as we see it to be an important marketing tool that will allow us to connect with the community and those interested in our brand,” said Josh Rossmeisl, Kings’ general manager, in an e-mail.
A recent example of the power of social media took place on Tuesday when Burtons Grill in Virginia Beach, Va., launched a two-for-one promotion using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to contact 1,500 diners. Reservations began streaming in within minutes, and the restaurant’s sales tripled that of the average night.
“We were blown away by what happened and how powerful this new medium is when used correctly,” said Kevin Rowell, owner of Burtons.
READ MORE ABOUT TWITTER
Steve Adams may be reached at sadams@ledger.com.
Financial tech web plays arise from ashes of economy
Article Courtesy of: MASS HIGH TECH
Former MIT computer scientist Jim Psota hopes that Panjiva can attract more gatherers of esoteric data to help serve traders.
When the world financial markets fell apart last fall, the prognosis was dire for startups bent on selling information technology to financial services firms. But entrepreneurs and investors in Massachusetts’ financial services IT sector didn’t blink: And now, three new companies founded or funded here are developing new models for both individual investors and data-driven money managers.
Panjiva Inc., a New York company with a Cambridge-based development team, is aggregating, cleaning and analyzing global trade data. Another New York firm, Covestor Inc., has taken funding from Boston-based Spark Capital for a service that allows users to automatically co-invest with other investors. A third company, Lexington-based StreamBase Systems Inc., has applied its real-time complex event-processing engine to the rising global tide of micro-blog posts on Twitter.
Providing investors with new sources of information, however obscure, remains a good business model, said Battery Ventures general partner Michael Brown, who invested in Panjiva. “When it comes to the guys who are managing money, it’s all about that little nugget of data that you can use,” he said.
Founded in 2007 by MIT computer scientist Jim Psota and former Boston Consulting Group associate Josh Green, Panjiva has taken in $5.5 million so far from Battery and a dozen angel investors. Its data sources include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shipping records, reports from overseas factory inspectors, and a Chinese government insurer’s due diligence on eight million companies. Last week, the company launched a partnership program designed to attract other gatherers of esoteric data relevant to trade.
The two originally envisioned a customer base of importers, but Panjiva has seen growing interest from the data distribution channels that target investor communities, Green said. Overseas factories often shutter with no warning, crippling a company’s supply chain. “To the investor community, there’s often little transparency about how much (supply chain) risk those companies are facing,” he said.
Last week, StreamBase, founded in 2003 by serial entrepreneur Michael Stonebraker, announced it had adapted its complex event processing system to support semantic analysis in real time on the stream of comments and dialog on the microblog sharing service Twitter.
“It’s pretty well understood on Wall Street that companies with the best data are going to make the most money,” said StreamBase CTO Richard Tibbetts. Changing trends in brand sentiment on Twitter may be the data point that influences a decision, he said.
Covestor hopes to capitalize on trends at the opposite end of the pool, where private individuals are disillusioned with Wall Street money managers. The company’s online service, launched last week, is designed to let investors piggy back on trades and investments made by a single other investor — who may or may not be a professional.
“Right now, you’re only able to follow the however many thousand professionals around the world,” said co-founder Perry Blacher. “We all know people we think are good at investing. Why can’t I invest alongside one of them?”
To navigate prohibitions against paying commissions to nonqualified, private investors, Covestor treats its record of investors’ trades as publishable information and charges a subscription fee, Blacher said. Followed investors receive $120 a year per subscriber, and the company itself reaps a fixed management fee of 0.5 to 1.5 percent.
Covestor is similar to existing services like the Motley Fool website’s Caps network, which lets investors share predictions — except it takes out the work of researching and making investments yourself, said Richard Gibble, director of the Hughey Center for Financial Services at Bentley University.
For investors chary of part-time day trading and mistrustful of Wall Street money managers, that “plug-and-play model” may be a compelling offering, he said. “The markets are complicated,” Gibble said. “Even if you know what you’re doing, it’s not easy to make money. Even for me, I like to think I know what I’m talking about, but it takes a lot of time. If you don’t have that time, you have to outsource it.”
R U Twittering Boston?
Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, answers this question best with his recent post:
12 Reasons You Should Start Twittering.
He blogs:
If you are wondering why in the world you should consider it, here are twelve reasons:
- It will enable you to experience social networking first-hand. One of my pet peeves is people who pontificate on new technologies but have never actually used them. This is particularly annoying—but common—among CEOs. Real users can always tell the difference. There is no substitute for personal experience.
- It will make you a better writer. Twitter only allows you to post 140 characters at a time. As a result, you are forced to be concise. In my opinion, this is one of the hallmarks of good writing. Short messages. Short paragraphs. Short sentences.
- It will help you stay connected to people you care about. This is one of the few technologies I’ve found that actually contributes to community-building. In today’s busy world, it’s difficult to keep up with others. Twitter makes it easy—and fun.
- It will help you see a new side of your friends. In an odd sort of way, Twitter “humanizes” people and provides a context for better understanding them. If you “follow me on Twitter”, for example, you’ll quickly see that I get excited, bored, frustrated, and confused—sometimes all in the same day. You’ll also learn what is important to me and what drives me crazy.
- It will introduce you to new friends. I have now met several new people via Twitter. These have contributed to my life in small but significant ways. Gail and I have even had dinner with a couple that we met via Twitter.
- It is faster than text-messaging. In a sense Twitter is a universal text messaging system. You can broadcast to all of your “followers” (i.e., people who subscribe to your Twitter feed) or send a direct message to just one. As a result, I have almost completely stopped text messaging. The only time I use it is to reply to someone who messages me outside of Twitter.
- It will make you think about your life. As you answer the question, “What am I doing?” you start to see your life through the lens of the people following you. Interestingly, it has made me more intentional and thoughtful about my life.
- It will help you keep up with what people are talking about. Via Twitter, I have learned about hot books, cool software, breaking news, and even great restaurants. Because the information is coming from real people who care enough to Twitter about it, I have found it more valuable and authentic.
- It can create traffic for your blog or Website. I have noticed a 30% uptick in my blog traffic in the last 30 days. It may be related to the fact that I have been in the news more or have been writing on more controversial posts. However, I also think it is related to the fact that I am Twittering every time I post a new blog entry. This seems to have a viral effect.
- It requires a very small investment. Twitter itself is a free service. In terms of my time, I probably invest less than 10 minutes a day. Since “tweets” (i.e., posts) are limited to 140 charters or less, you can scan them in a second or two. Writing them usually takes less than 30 seconds.
- It can help build your personal “brand.” When people hear your name, what comes to mind? What is your reputation? What is the “brand promise”? Brands are built incrementally, one interaction at a time. Twitter gives you one more way to build your brand, one tweet at a time.
- It is fun! Twitter is just plain entertaining. Following your family and friends is kind of like watching reality TV. The difference is that you know the people and actually care about them. In this sense, it is even more fun, because you know more about the people from other contexts. Don’t believe me? Give it a try.
I’m sure there are some downsides to Twitter that I am either ignoring or don’t recognize. But I would rather jump into the fray and shape the future of social networks rather than sit on the sidelines and throw stones.
Men are from Facebook, women are from Twitter?
Studies show the genders really are different online.
NEW YORK (Fortune) — For Jonathan and Michelle Opp of Chapel Hill, N.C., the Internet, like electricity and indoor plumbing, is an indispensable part of their lives. Always armed with their iPhones, they regularly check travel information and weather forecasts, and even use their devices to find answers to offbeat questions. But there are also major differences in the way the married couple use their devices and Internet connections.
Women Online - Boston Financial Guide
“Michelle probably does more functional things like shopping or paying bills. I like to spend more of my spare time reading music reviews and checking soccer scores,” says Jonathan, a marketing communications manager.
In fact gender, more so than race, ethnicity or economic status, determines how and what we peruse online. According to a recent study by eMarketer, slightly more women say they use the Internet than men. However once logged on, male Internet users tend to spend more time surfing the Web than females.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, eMarketer estimates that U.S. marketers will spend 37.2 billion dollars on online advertising by the year 2013. Clearly understanding what gets the genders ticking makes economic sense for any business buying ad space on the Web.
Internet Protocol addresses, however, don’t come in shades of pink and blue. So companies eager to reach men tend to focus ads on sports, technology and news sites. Businesses concentrating on women often center on stereotypically female-oriented sites, like parenting Web sites.
“Smart companies use behavioral targeting to try to reach their desired target demo online, but even then, they can’t tell who exactly is behind the IP addresses they are following,” says Lisa Phillips, an eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report “Men Online.”
So what, businesses may ask, is keeping the genders glued to their computer screens? For one, men are much more interested in watching online videos than women, notes Phillips.
The presumption that online images are more appealing to males should hardly come as a surprise: men have long been touted as the more visual sex. Other gender stereotypes seem to carry over to the online world as well: Women, who are often seen as caretakers of a family, tend to click on health care Web sites more frequently than men do.
However companies should be aware that not all Internet tendencies mirror offline generalizations.
“I would say for every situation where you think a trend may be confirming a stereotype, there seems to be another counterintuitive trend that might emerge as well,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
For example, women are often dubbed the more verbally adept sex. However they are no more likely to use online communication tools like e-mail, blogging, or social networks than men are.
And although women are sometimes pegged as more avid shoppers, men are just as keen as women to make online purchases. But their shopping behavior may differ.
“Men generally have the attitude, I’m going to go there, I’ve got to get it and get out,” says Phillips. “Females like to go online and socialize and shop around – much like going into a store.”
Furthermore, Phillips says fathers are just as voracious as mothers about finding online information to improve their children’s health or education. Like Web-savvy moms, they also tend to buy products with their families in mind.
Companies should also be wary about making generalizations on how the genders manage their finances. For years, men have been considered financial authorities in many families. But nowadays women are just as likely as men to bank online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
And though men are more likely to search the Internet for stock quotes or mortgage interest rates, Phillips says the dwindling economy has more women visiting online job sites. This is despite the fact that men have been hit harder by rising unemployment.
Meanwhile Michelle Opp, a software developer, has no problem admitting she shops online more frequently than her husband. But she insists it has nothing to do with gender. 
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| Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/20/technology/kattan_gender.fortune/index.htm |
Flutter – Roughage for your Vowels?
Flutter flies in the Face of Twitter – Flutter writes a new minimalist character chapter for the Social Media Savvy…
