We’ve been fond of praising those who do word of mouth marketing the right way, from musicians to the Four Seasons. And we’ve even brought to light some occasions where WOM can be detrimental to a company (remember United Breaks Guitars?). Looks like Morton’s Steak House falls under the “social media success” category. They’ve recently impressed a certain Peter Shankman, a self-proclaimed social media entrepreneur with just over 109,000 Twitter followers.
The story? Shankman tweeted at Morton’s right before a flight, jokingly requesting that they meet him at his destination with a porterhouse steak. Two hours and a grumbling stomach later, he walked off the flight and towards his rental car. Along the way, he was met by a man in a Tuxedo carrying a Morton’s bag. Shankman said…
Alex, from Morton’s Hackensack walks up to me, introduces himself, and hands me a bag. He proceeds to tell me that he’d heard I was hungry, and inside is a 24 oz. Porterhouse steak, an order of Colossal Shrimp, a side of potatoes, one of Morton’s famous round things of bread, two napkins, and silverware.
He hands me the bag.
I. Was. Floored.
He, like the rest of us in the social media sphere would have done, tweeted about it right away. He even snapped a picture.
The take away? Morton’s did it right. First and foremost, they appreciate their consumers before ever pulling stunts like the one above. Shankman describes in his blog post that the steakhouse has a very awesome Customer Relations Management system. Morton’s know that he is a steak lover. They know that he is a frequent customer. They know who he is when he calls. That is powerful in and of itself, and this system probably encouraged Morton’s social media team to know that Shankman would be the right guy for the surprise steak.
Secondly, Morton’s took the extra step – one that most companies never take – that can help solidify brand loyalty and created the ultimate experience for Shankman. Think of the amount effort in comparison to the pay off. Huge, right? If a company has the means to make a person feel like a their most important customer, why shouldn’t they jump at the chance?
Third, they picked the right dude. With Shankman’s huge following on Twitter, combined with his blog and online influence, the experience they created for him has been magnified to the tenth degree. All they needed was for him to tweet about it or share it on his blog, which he most certainly did. They took a seemingly small window of opportunity – a humorous and far reaching tweet – and blew the doors wide open. Word of mouth to the max!
So think of your company next time you get a tweet like Shankman’s. Do you have the means to make big things happen? Are you willing to take some risks for a big potential pay off?
