News from firefly grill

What's all the Twitter About?

No, we're not talking about birds! We're referring to Twitter, the social networking, micro-blogging platform that's growing by leaps and bounds. It's called micro-blogging because all messages, or Tweets, have to be 140 characters or less. So it quickly let's you communicate a short message, that usually answers the question "what are you doing".
Twitter utilizes a simple methodology: friends and followers. A friend is someone whose Tweets you read since they're sent to you. A follower is someone who reads your Tweets by subscribing to them. It's a simple two-way relationship, and if you decide you no longer want to read Tweets, you simply un-follow them.

You can send your messages via the Twitter website, or through applications that interface with other social networking sites, your browser, or your phone. Tweeter also has a load of third-party programs and plug-ins that allow you to expand on your networking.
In the last year the use of Twitter has grown exponentially and been embraced by Fortune 500 companies, politicians, the government, education, media and individuals. CNN, the Whitehouse, the BBC, JetBlue, Kodak, and H&R Block are all active Twitters.

For the firefly, Twitter allows us to let you know what we're up to. We can tell firefly followers about menu specials, events, and impromptu gatherings. Like when the suckling pig arrived last month...we could have immediately let followers know that fresh BBQ was on the menu that week. Or when entertainers from Rosebud performances come by before/after the show. We'll et you know who's in the house! Or when we decide to run drink specials - half-price anyone? And the best part is...you can Twitter right back to us. You can tweet us your likes and your dislikes, the hits and misses, or just what you're doing.

If you haven't seen Twitter, we'd like you to take a look. It's a great new tool for us, and something we think will allow us not only to communicate quickly, but to further develop our relationships with our fireflies.

If you follow the firefly, we'll be sending out Tweets initially on a fairly random basis, as we're getting used to it too. But once we have it down in our system, you can expect a couple of Tweets a week, just to let you know what's going on, or what's coming in.

To give you an idea, here are a few of my recent tweets:

fireflygrill celebrated our 3rd birthday last night! We had Étouffée, turtle soup, fresh oysters, oyster poor boys, jambalaya and too many hurricanes!
fireflygrill Pulling out the olives for some dirty girl martinis! The Rat Pack is coming Saturday and we will be serving thick steaks & stiff drinks!

So if you're up for it, we invite you join us on Twitter. Here's how:
Go to http://twitter.com and register your real name BEFORE it is gone! Using your real name is recommended as that way your friends and associates can find you. Now you have your own page, and you can send the address out to everyone you know, twitter.com/yourname. If you go to the Settings menu, you can set your phone so that it receives tweet messages.

Now, decide who to follow. Start with us at http://twitter.com/fireflygrill. Then choose who else to follow. Search for your friends, business associates, or follow your favorite band, politician, person or cause. Once you find them and click on their profile, you have the option to turn device updates on or off. If you turn them on, tweets will be sent directly to your phone or your IM messenger, once you have your phone registered.

Then go ahead and write your first tweet. Press update and your tweet is published on the website and appears on the page of anyone following you. It's that easy! You can also direct message us (and others) through Twitter of by putting an @ before their user name, ie: @fireflygrill.

We're excited about the possibilities that Twitter offers us and the opportunity to keep our fireflies "in the know" in a quick, efficient manner. We hope you'll join and follow us!