A Party With Rudolph and a Lot of Bzz

BzzAgent’s employee holiday party is this week… and as you can see from this image we are doing something unique. You didn’t expect stuffed chicken breasts and bowls of cheese doodles at the local Holiday Inn did you? The theme is “Roast Rudolph” and it will feature Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer themed food, drinks and entertainment at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts.

Our spin on the traditional holiday party is generating some buzz. The Boston Business Journal talked to Dave Balter about it in their article about the rise of holiday parties this year.

To put on an event like this, we teamed with our friends at Eat. Eat runs sold-out specialty food events all over the city including our “Monsters of Pork” event during the FutureM conference this fall. If you weren’t there, here’s what you missed.

What makes Eat so unique is that they plan and promote all their events exclusively through social media. We caught up with Eat’s co-founder Aaron Cohen to learn a little more about this social food phenomenon.

How would you describe Eat events?

Eat is all about connecting people to new dining experiences. Like “Roast Rudolph”, our events are based around a theme, ingredient, or dish. All of our events have been set up differently so it’s hard to describe the typical event. It’s food lovers getting together to try things from places they might not have had an opportunity to try. We like the idea of providing unique eating experiences. A lot of times the events are fundraisers for local organizations as well.

How did you get started?

It was on a whim, really. The name @EatBoston was available on Twitter, I grabbed it and started talking about food events and restaurants. It didn’t take long for the following to grow. We first started doing events just to raise awareness of the Twitter discussion, now it is the other way around. We’ve since rolled out Eat to cities across the country.

Besides our Roast Rudolph and Monsters of Pork parties, what are some of the unique themes you’ve put on?

Guacaholics Anonymous, Ice Cream Showdown, the Boston Bacon and Beer Festival, The Boston Lobster Party, Ginger Explosion to name a few.

You have an impressive following online and your events always sell out. How have you done it? How do you keep them engaged?

Well, I’m Aaron Cohen and I’m kind of a big deal. Seriously, I just try to provide information that people find helpful. Every day I post about interesting events and activities all across the city. One of the things I enjoy the most is asking questions that allow followers to voice an opinion. I follow up with them and get more people involved. Everyone likes talking about their favorite hamburger, taco, dessert, etc. I use Twitter and Facebook extensively, but I don’t think of it as social media… its just good old fashion word of mouth.

Roast Rudolph is a very unique idea. What makes a great holiday party?

Manhattans

For more detailed answer, you’ll have to see what he saying over at @EatBoston. I know we have some video bloggers in our company so watch videos from the event next week.

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