Steak and mushroom pie from British Pie Society’s new City Market location.

Chicken and Thyme pie by Pie Society

Today, my husband and I decided to go out for lunch in downtown Savannah, and we were set to go to Starland Cafe since he’s never been and I love the food there. But as we hopped in the car, I pulled up my #Savannah Twitter feed in my Hootsuite account and saw that someone had just posted about a fantastic lunch they had at the just-opened British Pie Society in City Market. We’ve been waiting for this spot to open, so we immediately changed our plans and opted to go for savory, authentic pies.

The tweet did not come from the bakery itself, but from a happy customer that enjoyed her experience enough to tweet and Instagram about it. The bakery itself posted once on Twitter since opening, stating on July 14, “We’re open in City Market! #Savannah #PieSociety #citymarket.” Without the customer’s tweet I saw today, my husband and I would not have ventured to the Pie Society today, and maybe not for several more weeks or months depending on when we went out for lunch again (which doesn’t happen that often).

As a result, I checked-in on Foursquare and will leave a review there as well as TripAdvisor. I’ll also post to Instagram and tell friends positive things about this new spot. Plus, we took a ton of photos that might show up in a future article I write about Pie Society, all thanks to one tweet. While there’s no doubt that Pie Society is super busy managing both this new City Market location and their year-old Pooler location, by tweeting daily, they would grab people who do a quick scan of #Savannah to influence their lunch or breakfast plans. And I hope to see them thank the customers that do share about their experience on social channels, which further compounds the value of the customer tweet that hooked me.

Remember, people who use social media regularly to make decisions about where to go are the same people who will then share about places they love. The tail of this one customer tweet extends beyond just her Twitter and Instagram posts, and the value is in many ways immeasurable because many people will see the same post I did but never reveal that it caused them to come eat lunch or breakfast there, just like my the posts I share may influence others in un-trackable ways.