It used to be that a restaurant would serve a grand opening feast to show off its menu to newspaper and TV reporters. The mayor might even get an invite to cut a ribbon off the front door.
But the VIP’s this night at the Anthony’s on McMullen Booth Road were bloggers and influential Twitter scribes who, with a single post, could reach tens of thousands of followers reading along about the meal on their laptops, iPads and smartphones.
Increasingly, restaurants and other food businesses are schmoozing with the social media elite to spread the word as part of their marketing strategies. For operators with small budgets, harnessing the electronic word of mouth at “tweetups” (a Twitter hybrid of tweeting and meet-up) is a less-expensive way to reach the masses than traditional advertising and marketing.