wagamama news
AUSSIE FIRST FOR NEW SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL
Sydney, 11th March 2010: The world’s favourite noodle bar, wagamama, has made social media history by becoming the first company in Australia to be selected to utilise the new business tool from the rapidly growing social media network, Foursquare
With half a million members already part of its global network, Foursquare is the next big thing in social media and is taking the world by storm with new users signing up at a phenomenal rate. Known as a ‘location-based social network’, Foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder and a city-guide that allows users to interact and share information about certain locations. When users arrive at a restaurant, business or other venue they ‘check in’” online to share details with a group of friends. By doing this, the user is rewarded in some way via benefits such as money-off vouchers or free drink coupons by the company they’ve ‘checked in’ with as well as receiving tips on the venue from other others
Earlier this week (9 March 2010), the New York Times reported Foursquare’s exciting new plans to “distribute a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks that will give business owners access to a range of information and statistics about visitors to their establishments.” wagamama Australia has been selected as one of the first businesses across the world to benefit from this new tool
Through its partnership with Foursquare, wagamama will be able to access a range of real-time information about its customers including who has ‘checked in’ to its noodle bars, when they arrived, the male-to-female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers, who the most frequent visitors to the restaurant are etc. wagamama has also launched a national Foursquare promotion that provides instant offers to engage new customers and keep current ones connected with the brand
CEO of wagamama Australia, Mark Rowland, an avid social media user who uses the company’s twitter account to interact with customers, comments: “Foursquare has already taken the US by storm and Aussies will soon be reaping the benefits of this dynamic new network. We’re delighted to be chosen as one of the first company’s across the world to use the new tool – this will allow us to better connect with our guests, better understand them and offer targeted promotions including rewarding our most frequent visitors with special offers. It will be the perfect complement to our existing loyalty program as well as driving in people that may never have visited a wagamama noodle bar before”
Tristan Walker, Director of Business Development Manager at Foursquare said: “We’re trying to give businesses more retention tools to use with their current customers and the ability to add new customers via special offers. If a restaurant can see one of its loyal customers has dropped off the map and is no longer checking in, the owner could offer them incentives to come back”
wagamama is constantly on the look-out for innovative ways to communicate with its customers and this week it held the first national tweetup (meeting of twitter fans) in Australia in five key cities. The noodle bars also launched the first interactive online mobile ordering system in late 2009 http://m.wagamamatakeout.com.au allowing customers to order dishes direct from their mobile
To follow wagamama on twitter go to twitter.com/wagamama or visit www.wagamama.com.au for more information
