Street Fight reports that millions of mostly-young people are roaming around this week with their heads down and smartphones in hand, looking for pocket monsters and training their Pokémon at Pokémon Gyms and PokéStops retail stores like Applebee’s, and at community landmarks. They’re playing Pokémon Go, and many of the businesses they’re walking past and traipsing through are looking for ways to get in on the action.
Applebee’s has started re-tweeting and responding to customers who post screenshots or pictures of themselves playing Pokémon at Applebee’s restaurants and tag the restaurant in their posts. The strategy is likely to increase the number of people who visit Applebee’s on 125th Street looking for Pokémon and it also encourages social media users to post pictures of themselves at their local restaurants in the hopes of having their tweets shared with the large Applebee’s social media audience. Any business could do this by looking through their mentions without spending a dime.
