A recent Mashable article states that 3% of Twitter's servers are dedicated to teen superstar, Justin Bieber.  To be honest, I've been avoiding Bieber Fever as much as possible, but it's inescapable now that he's taking over Twitter.  

To clarify, the article stated that Bieber and his fans got the dedicated servers, not just Justin, but the article goes on to explain that most of Twitter's popular users have dedicated servers for their accounts.  When Mashable tried to verify the claim with Twitter, it was neither confirmed nor denied, but considering the volume of Bieber's tweets and Twitter activity - it makes perfect sense.

Considering Bieber has 5 million followers, Twitter's servers have to push each of his tweets out to over 5 million Twitter accounts.  His tweets get retweeted like crazy, and within seconds of each of his tweets, his account gets over 60 @replies per second.

That's a LOT of tweeting.

~ Doniree Walker, for FRWD 

{Photo credit}

I love it when companies engage their audience on Twitter.  I especially love it when local businesses and restaurants have real conversations with their customers.

When I first moved to Boulder, Colorado, I started following local bars and restaurants so I'd know who did what, where the happy hours were, and what to try next.  Mateo Restaurant (@mateorestaurant) was one of the ones I found on Twitter, so I followed.  I told the story of my Tweet exchange with them here, and that initial conversation not only got me in the door once, but made me a regular customer and friends with the owners, which in turn resulted in some great connections with other local business owners and friends.  It's a great relationship that started online.

Boulder eateries have continued to impress me in the months since I've been here.  Places like Tee and Cakes (@teeandcakes) and Cefiore (@cefioreCO) make it a regular practice to answer questions, post mouth-watering pictures, and respond quickly to tweets at and about their businesses.  As a community, we love it because we feel not only like a customer, but like a real part of their business.

Jill's Restaurant joined the list of "local businesses I love to see on Twitter" last week when my co-working partner in crime (boyfriend) and I stopped in for breakfast while we worked.

It was our second time in there, and after the first time we'd visited, I'd tweeted about having a great experience there and got a reply from @JillsRestaurant thanking me for coming by.  This second visit, they upped their game.

I tweeted notes from both my travel/food account (@nomadicfoodie) and from my personal account (@doniree), simply nodding to the fact that we had returned to Jill's, were enjoying breakfast while we worked, and I noted that we appeared to be the only locals in the house. 

(Jill's is a cafe/restaurant inside of a popular businessperson's hotel here and most patrons appeared to be travelers.)

I tweeted:

We continued working there after our bagels and muffins were finished, sipping our coffee, and typing away.  The [friendly, wonderful] server brought our bill.  Or so we thought.  We opened the bill to find this:

As a customer, I appreciated that they picked up the tab for our breakfast last week.  As a food blogger, I thought that was really, really awesome.  And as a social media blogger, I thought - what a perfect story and example of great customer service in social media.

I know Boulder's generally got a great online presence of our local businesses and eateries.  I also know Minneapolis does as well. 

What about your city?  What examples of great customer service are you seeing online?  Share the Twitter accounts in the comments - I'd love to check out what they're doing!

~ Doniree Walker, for FRWD ~

Photo credits: Doniree Walker
Jill's Restaurant can be found on Twitter here, and on the web here.  They're located in the St. Julien Hotel, downtown Boulder and provide excellent food and service to locals and travelers alike.