I had dinner with my wife at Romano’s Macaroni Grill at the Dubai Mall the other day and it was a generally pleasant experience.
The staff were friendly, the food was excellent and their tables were lined with paper you could draw on with the supplied crayons. I love to draw but didn’t take any photo evidence of my horrific artwork!
Our waiter came over wrote his name on our table and told us to follow Romano’s Macaroni Grill on twitter by giving us the hashtag #RMGDXB. I was half-minded about this – because it was refreshing to see a company actually encourage social media following so proactively but also because you don’t follow a company by a hashtag, you follow their twitter account and need their handle.
I have a rule of not using my phone when out to dinner because it’s really anti-social and takes away from the simple and fulfillin gmomemnt that is enjoying and sharing food with others. So I didn’t check the twitter account til later and that’s where I found a few problems:
1. #RMGDXB doesn’t appear to be an active hashtag (I’m the only one tweeting it!)
2. Their twitter handle is actually @MacaroniGrill (so where did #RMGDXB come from?!)
So the key take aways from this rant is:
1. If you’re going to use a hashtag as part of your social media presence, make sure everyone is on board with it (including yourself!).
2. Make sure you promote the correct social media handles.
For what it’s worth, I give mad props to our waiter for writing his name and the hashtag upside down!
