Coffee Shop Builds Business with Twitter

Michael Giberson

Unlike Lynne, I don’t Twitter.  (No Facebook or Myspace, either.  I don’t text from my phone – well, only to reply when my kids text me first; I used to IM, but I don’t anymore.)  I do have a LinkedIn profile, but other than blogging here and responding to the occasional email, that is about as close to ‘social media’ as I get these days.

But I am, as you might say, Twitter-curious.  This story about a Houston coffee house that used Twitter to build business caught my eye.

An excerpt:

On October 31st, 2008 Sean Stoner (@maslowbeer) was hungry. As a regular customer at CoffeeGroundz he sent the following Twitter to Cohen:

Cohen quickly replied and Sean went through the drive-thru at CoffeeGroundz to pick up his burrito.

This simple exchange got a lot of coverage on Twitter and was hailed as potentially the first time that Twitter had ever been used to place a To-Go Order. Seeing an opportunity, Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct message from any of his Twitter Clientele.

CoffeeGroundz offers free Wi-Fi, plenty of outlets, and they serve beer and wine – making it a cross between a Coffee House and a Lounge. Today, customers can order beverages and tasty bites from the comfort of their seat using Direct Messages to @coffeegroundz. How cool is that? You don’t even have to stop working to walk to the counter and order a coffee.

Hat tip to Texas Coffee People.

(By the way, I think the best place in Lubbock to get coffee is Sugar Brown’s, on 50th Street.  They have a Myspace page, but no Twitter so far as I can tell.)