@HumphrySlocombe: The Ice Cream Champion Of Twitter

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Twitter isn’t falling short of successful small business examples. Recently, we got to learn about @HumphrySlocombe, a small ice cream shop, which smartly uses Twitter to its advantage.

It has shown the world how Twitter can be turned into a powerful advertising tool if we throw in some good thinking and personal touch.

Using exactly the same platform available to us, the only thing that differentiates the ice cream champion away from the crowd is the tone of their tweets – portraying a friendly and cool image, living up to their Twitter bio, “Ice Cream with Attitude”.

From The New York Times:

Humphry Slocombe is a 14-seat ice cream shop in San Francisco that has gathered nearly 300,000 Twitter followers — far more than giant competitors like Ben & Jerry’s, Baskin-Robbins or Dairy Queen. Not bad for a small business that began posting on Twitter only last year.

“We started using Twitter just because we have zero money for any kind of advertising or promotion whatsoever,” said Sean Vahey, co-owner and operations manager. “We have a product that changes daily. Our customers were asking, ‘How do you keep us up to date on the different flavors?’ Twitter was the perfect answer.”

But there was an issue. Mr. Vahey’s first impression of Twitter could be summed up in six characters: boring. So he decided to make his account edgy, occasionally rude and always entertaining. The shop’s Twitter bio: “ice cream with attitude.”

The store posts updates to its menu, which features 100 ice cream flavors including prosciutto, milk chocolate tarragon and foie gras. “As soon as we put it on Twitter it moves,” Mr. Vahey said. “It’s an instant response.”

We are not exactly how its number of followers has snowballed to nearly 300,000 followers within a year; a feat that most businesses struggle with. We’ll be requesting for an interview to dig deeper. Stay tuned!