Ewing's Seafood: The Northern Ireland Tweeter of the Week

Ewing's blend an appreciation for the old trade with new media to put on a masterclass on top client service.

Another week has passed and so the Tweeting Lawyer must announce the latest winner of the “Northern Ireland Tweeter of the Week” Award. The Twitter-savvy Wagamama Belfast were last week’s rightful winners, but who’ll they be passing the title onto this week? It certainly hasn’t been an easy decision for us to make. As always the quality of Northern Ireland Tweeting was of the highest standard and the competition was fierce.

Over the week past we’ve seen some real stand out candidates who’re continually pushing the boundaries of Tweeting. It’s these guys that are setting the standards and it’s these top Tweeters who we want to highlight. By highlighting the best and brightest our hope is then that law firms and others can begin to learn and replicate. We do after all often say that learning is easiest through observing, doing and seeing.

In order to decide upon a winner we again looked at some very specific criteria: level of interaction, frequency of Tweets, aesthetics of Twitter page, biography, informativeness, consistency and overall Twitter experience. However this week has heralded a new addition to the “Tweeter of the Week” Award. As this week’s monitoring process progressed we decided to introduce a new criterion: photos.

We were struck by the power of the visual and how some businesses are breaking down the traditional barriers by posting fun and vibrant photos of staff and events. Undoubtedly photos are a powerful tool and a fantastic way to put a face to your business and humanise your brand.

And so onto the announcement of the winner of the Award that pays tribute to the week’s most potent Tweeters in Northern Ireland and showcases just how the best Tweeters do it. The Tweeting Lawyer team are delighted to unveil Belfast’s finest purveyor of seafood, Ewing’s fishmongers, as the latest winner of the “Northern Ireland Tweeter of the Week Award”.

Ewings are a vibrant and exciting local fishmongers who trade global. And although they’ve been in businesses for over 100 years they Tweet like an ambitious start-up. And that’s what we liked most about their Tweeting. Where other businesses park their Twitter feed or broadcast mindlessly Ewing’s Seafood post informative, engaging and down to earth content. 

Undoubtedly they are one of the strongest business Tweeters out there and definitely one for others to look up to as a standard bearer of Twitter best practice.

For those wanting to know why exactly they’re so special here’s a breakdown of how exactly Eversheds scored:

Level of interaction and engagement – Ewing’s are great for this and they really get involved with their Twitter following with @mentions @replies and retweets. They’re really pushing the boundaries and reimagining the way that business should be done and it’s really great to see. It’s particularly cool to see the fishmongers interact with local chefs and businesses; this really is how Twitter should be done – creative clustering!

5/5

Frequency of Tweets – Ewing’s aren’t exactly a Tweet-single-day kind of business but that doesn’t mean they leave their feed inactive for days and weeks at a time. Bar the odd silence the guys maintain a fresh and regularly updated Twitter stream. We haven’t seen any prolonged periods of inactivity which is great and when they do post the content is great. All round their Tweeting frequency is spot on: not too much and not too little, but just right!

4.5/5

Biography – Their Twitter bio is short, snappy and to the point. It’s clearly nicely done but for us there was one thing missing: they didn’t mention their global exports. This isn’t a massive deal however, just maybe something to be considered. It also should be noted that they have a link to their website. This subtle but hugely effective! A Twitter-must!

 A Twitter bio is always a big factor in setting a browser’s first impressions and Ewing’s have definitely done things right.

4.5/5

Aesthetics and qualities of Twitter page – The Ewing’s Twitter aesthetics are fantastic and first impressions are really impressive. They’ve really done a great job and they will surely have stopped a lot of browser bounce thanks to the vibrancy of their page.

The one weakness would be their background which, whilst having the green theme, feels a little empty. I’d recommend they put the wonderful oil painting of Walter by Oliver Jeffers down the side. What do you think?

4/5

Informativeness – Ewing’s are a good source of interesting facts, updates and information. They kept us informed and they’re definitely a model of good practice in this criterion.

4/5

Consistency – Ewing’s consistently Tweet well across the various criteria we reviewed them on and so they should be awarded top marks.

5/5

Photos – This section really blew us away. So many people forget or don’t realise, but the potential for photos to revolutionise your Twitter feed are huge. The selection of Ewing’s photos are just fantastic and they really go to humanise the company and give it life and personality.

Our particular favourites were the oil painting of Walter and the pictures of the team in Dubai.

5/5

Twitter experience – An innovative and forward thinking business who’re really leading in a vanguard of exciting Northern Ireland business Tweeters. For the interesting factoids, snippets of information and photos they are well worth a follow.!

5/5

Overall Ewing’s Twitter Score – 37/40

Well there you have it, the winner of the latest “Northern Ireland Tweeter of the Week” and just how they do it. We really hope that by doing this that others can begin to understand the science of top Tweeting and just how it is that the top business Tweeters Tweet well and win awards for doing so!

Effective Tweeting shouldn’t be seen as hard. Yes we understand the initial reservations but all it takes is careful observation and putting proven practices into practice. In any case big shout out to the Ewing’s team – keep on driving the Northern Ireland brand and keep up the top Tweeting!