Local businesses use social media for feedback

From Indiana to Arizona to California, people are talking about Scholar’s Inn Bakehouse.

But the conversation isn’t on the phone or in person — it’s on Twitter.

Kirk Marky, assistant general manger of the Bakehouse, said he was searching on Twitter one day and found a conversation between someone in Arizona and someone in California.

The Arizona resident was searching graduate schools and wanted a city with good coffee shops. The California resident suggested Bloomington because of Scholar’s Inn.
“That was very gratifying,” Marky said. “I enjoy that contact even though it’s not in person.”

Scholar’s Inn is one of many local businesses using social media, like Twitter, to advertise as well as to connect with current and potential customers in
the community.

Jennifer Hileman, systems and planning coordinator for Bloomingfoods, started a Twitter account for the business about two years ago. There is also a Facebook page for all four locations.

“Nobody here was really catching on to the business side,” Hileman said. “Our marketing team is a little bit older, so they needed a little convincing.”

Hileman said there aren’t any guidelines for how they use social media and only occasionally run into problems.

“We’ve run into issues when you get feedback from our customers that is particularly harmful,” she said.

Recently a follower of Bloomingfoods complained on Twitter about a bad sandwich they purchased from the store, but Hileman said she saw this as an opportunity to reach out to the customer.

“You can’t have guidelines for your users,” she said. “If their sandwich sucked, they have every right to say that.”

Marky said the Bakehouse occasionally receives negative feedback as well, and he also tries to remedy the problem.

“I think it’s naive to think we won’t have negative comments,” Marky said.
Hileman said Twitter is also useful for hearing positive comments and being able to connect directly with customers.

“When you start using social media, it becomes conversational,” she said. “That conversation can be really, really meaningful.”

Marky said the Bakehouse also enjoys reaching out to the customers with Twitter.
“We want to participate with other people in the community,” he said. “It helped to cement the bond with Bloomington.”

Aside from reaching their customer base, some business owners in Bloomington use social media for advertising.

Hilary Martel, co-owner of Hartzell’s Ice Cream, said she started using Twitter and Facebook for the store a couple months after it opened in September 2009.

“It’s an inexpensive way to contact a broad number of people,” she said.
Martel said the majority of the tweets focus on new ice cream flavors or special deals. She said there is a noticeable increase in business when they do that.

Despite good intentions for using Twitter and Facebook often, Martel said it’s difficult to keep up with it sometimes.

“You just kind of get wrapped up in everyday business,” she said.
Martel said she is going to brainstorm new ways to use social media and might start looking into Foursquare, one of the newer additions to social sites.

Currently, Hartzell’s isn’t involved with Foursquare, but Bloomingfoods allows customers to check-in to any of its locations. Hileman said there aren’t any promotional deals yet.

“That one is a little trickier,” she said. “I don’t think Foursquare has a very high adoption rate.”

Hileman and Martel said Foursquare could become more important in the future, even if it isn’t right now, along with Twitter and Facebook gaining more prominence.

“I definitely think it’ll keep on expanding, especially as we keep using it to our advantage,” Martel said.