Last night I was part of an unusual event, the first in Israel: Eat&Twitt at Forelin Restaurant. The event was organized by Liat Vardi-Bar, a known social marketer in Israel and Yosi Taguri and Eran Kampf, who coined the hashtag #fiddme, and even working on a little venture by that name.. 😉
25 twipple were invited to this event (broadcasted live at Ustream.tv), were we enjoyed a 3-course dinner, comprised of Foreline’s new summer menu, coupled with various wines, courtesy of Agur, Saslove and Tulip wineries, a short lecture on food photography by Guy Kaminsky (Boxee.tv) and a gift – a cooking book. Did I mention all of the above was free?
You might wonder why would a restaurant decide to organize a free dinner to 25 people, that the only thing they have in common is: a) they love food; b) they twit. But this exactly is where most companies are wrong, especially if we’re considering the power of social media. Those 25 people made such a ‘noise’ last night, that at some point people took some drastic measures, because they started drooling over the keyboard.. The web is filled today (and probably tomorrow as well) with posts, pictures, videos and links to Forelin and Eat&Twitt. When a friend or colleague will ask me which restaurant to I recommend for fish and seafood, the answer would be obvious.
Forelin Rastaurant came to understand what companies are only beginning to realize – you need to meet your audience at their turf, in order to start a conversation with them. No matter how sophisticated your website is, no one will visit it without you making the first step. Liat has been very-very-very active with Forelin in that space, but convincing Chef Amir and the owners to organize such an event is a testimonial of the power social media has these days.
Liat, Yosi, Eran and Forelin Restaurant: THANK YOU!
Links:
Pictures on Flickr (courtesy of Niv Calderon, including the ones in this post)
Pictures of the event on facebook
Post about Eat&Twitt on newsgeek.co.il (with more pics of food)
Twitter results for forelintlv (screened last night using twitterfall)
Forelin Restaurant
Follow ForelinTLV on twitter
Wow! what a great looking post.
it was great meeting you, hope to catch up when back from France:)
Great post and an apt summary of the night. There is no question in my mind that social media is revolutionizing marketing and the repercussions will inevitably spread to the world outside the internet. It was impressive to see people like Liat and the owners of Forelin not only believe in the potential, but also able to step up to the plate and bridge the gap between the physical and the digital.
Totally agree with you Ainav.
Kudos to Liat for making this a reality, stepping baldly into this space and to ForelinTLV for literally investing $$ in social media!
Liat – enjoy France, talk to you next week 🙂