After explaining what a “Tweet-up” is about 35 times, I was ready to kick my feet up at the 2nd annual IBSS Tweet and Meet up yesterday. What’s a Tweet-up? I am glad you asked.
The Tweet-up at this year’s Boston Seafood Show brought together a small group of social media savvy show attendees and exhibitors for a great evening of thought provoking discussion, idea sharing and some laughs - and I don’t think I saw a smart phone come out the entire time!
If you noticed a lull on in #IBSS11 tweets for a couple of hours, its because a Tweet-up is a face-to-face event that serves as a great reminder to Twitter newbies and old salts alike - if you don’t unglue your eyes and thumbs from your phone for a couple of hours, you miss out on a lot.
We pondered the role of Twitter (and Facebook, YouTube, Yelp, and LinkedIn) in our industry - who’s using it effectively, who’s choosing to ignore it and who’s just plain against it. It’s safe to say the consensus was that social media isn’t going away, and if you continue to hesitate to use it, you risk alienating your increasingly techno-loving customer base.
It’s also amazing the amount of time social can take up if you let it. If you’re new to the game, make sure you’re scheduling enough time to do it well. Everyone at the event agreed that the more time you can devote to your social media program the better, but that you need to be careful about letting it dominate your agenda. Spread the work around, let your coworkers share the load - even if they’re not in marketing. Chances are you have more than one person who’s already comfortable on Facebook or LinkedIn on your team, you just need to find them and give them the tools they need to be successful.
The Twitter wall at this year’s show was abuzz with quotes, suggestions, breaking news, jokes and questions. I found a bunch of interesting, connected people to follow and I hope we picked up some new followers for our account.
I should mention that we also enjoyed some delicious appetizers and ice cold beer at the Tweet-up (thanks @BostonSeafood) and talked about things other than social media - if you’re curious just what Tweeters talk about when they get together, join us next year at the 3rd annual Tweet-up!
