Bringing Twitter into the real world: 'Tweet Ups' in Newbury
When you are Twittering away to you followers on Twitter... do you ever wonder what it would be like to meet up with them? Well today was quite eventful in that part of my life with delightful and productive 'Tweet Ups' with three such people - or indeed in the oft painful parlance of Twitter - Tweeple!
Naturally the venue for this encounter was Le Petit Square, the only restuarant in Newbury, West Berkshire that is Twittering and my first meeting here had actually been with a client who Twitters - Natures Corner from Newbury, so I was already there when Nikki Pilkington and Shaun Gisbourne, who were over from their base in France visiting clients, family and friends - and meeting people they know via Twitter.
It was actually slightly surreal - I mean, it felt like I knew these people and we have Twittered, emailed and even spoken on the telephone as the social networking has seen us collaborate and share expertise and ideas - but here were to people that I had not met before today!
We got on uproariously well and had not long finished some fabulous food from Le Petit Square's talented kitchen team, when we were joined by another Twitter - The Sourceress, aka Katharine Robinson, who lives and works in Newbury, but is someone that we all knew online, but had never met.
She wanted to discuss exciting plans for a Berkshire 'Twestival' in September that would seek to bring hundreds of people from across the Royal County to a venue in Reading, means many people would get to 'Tweet Up' as we just had. I think I may have blushed when she pointed out my influential position as a a top local Twitter ideally positioned me to drive the idea locally.
Naturally a photograph was taken and sent out on Twitter via Twitpic for all too see and is reproduced here too and from left are Nikki, Shaun, myself and Katharine. I can also promise that Nikki smiles just about all the time - except when a waiter is holding her iPhone to take this photograph.
Putting the fun aspect of these encounters to one side for a moment, such meetings actually have a powerful impact the a virtual networking relationships that we enjoyed. They confirmed that we were all congruent in the real world with our virtual offering and now we can build our relationships further and without doubt that will lead to exciting opportunities.
When you sit on Twitter, or add people to your Facebook page - or when they become fans on your business page - do you ever consider meeting them? Networking for real? Perhaps you should?