Nothing makes one want to jump on Twitter and pound away at your keyboard like Newsweek’s recent article about the wildly popular Kogi Korean taco truck in Los Angeles, which the magazine calls “L.A.’s latest culinary obsession.”
The crowds that greet the truck often exceed 600 ravenous people. How is this possible? Twitter, of course. Says Chef Roy Choi, “Twitter can hit, like, 5,000 people a second.”
But buried in the same article is an insightful line by the author: “Still, spreading the word is pointless without a word worth spreading.”
He took the words right out of our mouths.
Indeed, the article explains that Choi was raised in his family’s Koreatown restaurant but largely avoided traditional Asian cuisine. Instead, he found his culinary inspiration in the idea of “representing L.A. in one bite—Korean flavors, Mexican context.”
The result, as the article’s author states, is that the food is “perfectly au courant: market produce and unfamiliar proteins prepared for the authenticity-craving postracial palate and sold at recession-ready prices.”
In other words, Twitter didn’t make Choi, Choi made Twitter. He built his brand around a brilliant message—one that can be summed up in one sentence—and created a timely, relevant product for which there was substantial demand.
Without Twitter, the crowds for Kogi Korean would definitely be smaller. But without the great message and a strong brand identity, there would be no crowd at all. Twitter is a magnificent way to spread your story. But an important question comes first: What story are you telling?
March 23, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
[...] got Sunset’s attention was our piece about the Twitter Fueled Taco Truck. As Sunset remarked in linking to our blog, “And finally, a taco truck in Los Angeles shows [...]