I’m a huge fan of meeting people I only know online,
offline. Not long after joining Twitter for a beverage brand I was working on,
I thought it would be great to “surprise” (not truly a surprise, since I
planned it) to fly into cities where we had a large community and take people
out to brunch in large groups. I was behind a brand logo, but really got to
know people and though it’s been a couple years now since I ran that specific
Twitter handle, I still am friends with many people around the country from
that community to this day.
I recently heard someone say that “TweetUp” was an “outdated
term.” I don’t see it that way. In my opinion, it’s truer to the actual act
than the newer term “#ConnectIRL.” I feel “#IRL” is more outdated. For those of
us that make our living via social media, how is online not “real life?”
Periscope and Meerkat have shown us that our real lives are now up for public
consumption. Each day there are more and more ways to share everything you do
at all times throughout your day…during your “real life.”
Depending on how much time you devote to social media sites
like Twitter, which is my favorite both personally and professionally, the more
you begin to develop very deep relationships. There are those people that you
meet and feel an immediate connection with. You click with them and feel you’ve
known them for years, which makes sharing things and transparency even more
enjoyable and easy. Because I feel like these people are close friends, I want
to them see them face to face. I want to watch their expressions as they tell
me things I’ve previously only been able to read. Twitter conversations often
become phone calls and it only follows that a TweetUp would be next.
In school, we were able to make friends without trying. We
were constantly surrounded by other people that were doing the same things we
were. So where do adults go for that? I follow people on Twitter that have the
same interests I do, that tweet about things I’m interested in, or tweet things
I learn from; sometimes for work, sometimes because they make me laugh,
sometimes because they give me inspiration. Through Twitter, I have the
opportunity to make friends with people that I know have things in common with
me. It’s much better than meeting someone at a bar. “YOU drink? I drink too! We
have SO. MUCH. IN. COMMON.” Until we sober up. When I was drinking daily, I
would wake up after a night out with so many pictures of myself with random
people I was “so excited to meet” the night before, only to delete them. I
don’t know these people. I’ll never make plans with these people. How many
times have you gone through your contact list, only to delete people you don’t
remember putting into your phone, having met them during a night at the bar,
realizing you haven’t spoken to them ever again?
In the past month, I’ve planned two TweetUps – one in my
hometown of Chicago and another in my adopted hometown of LA, where I spent 10
of the last 12 years. There exists a huge contradiction inside of me. I’m oddly
as much of a hermit as I am an excitement junkie. People are often surprised to
hear that, as I’ve made a career out of field marketing and PR, and have always
found energy in connecting people to one another. It’s true though. In Chicago,
everyone that attended were people I’d never met outside of Twitter. In LA, it
was a mix of friends I haven’t seen in years and friends I was yet to meet,
after solely knowing them through Twitter chats. Both times, what was planned
to be 1-2 hour dinners, ended after 4. Did I think I’d end up hanging with
everybody I met after the TweetUp? Maybe. I try not to go into anything with
preconceived notions, preferring to just live in the moment and enjoy my time.
If it’s awful, it’s 1 hour out of your life. You can get through anything for
an hour, right? If it’s a great time? You never know what these relationships
will mean down the road. TweetUps help the world feel a little bit smaller, a
little more intimate.
I’m heading to San Francisco for 10 days, the last two weeks
of May. Soon, I’ll begin going through my Twitter lists to see who I know
there, and what the best date is for them to meet for dinner.
Los Angeles TweetUp @ The Federal Bar
Chicago TweetUp @ Hubbard Inn
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