The Doylestown Tweetup

Wednesday evening I went to my first ever local "tweetup". The term is a play on the word meet-up, but of course like everything having to do with the social network/communication tool twitter the word has been bastardized so that it promotes the service.

Before I get into the event itself, let me tell you how came to be and how I even knew it was there.

Of course you all know I have an account on twitter and I use it regularly. Even though it annoys Stefanie when I say so I do like my twitter account and I think it has value. (if you don't know Stef's position on twitter, just ask her - it's fun to watch the steam come out of her head). Nonetheless, I use my account to follow local real estate happenings as well as things that would interact with my other endeavors, including the Rotary Club I belong to (which also has it's own twitter account). Turns out the Rotary Club started being "followed" by a new twitter user called @DoylestownTwTp (which is of course shorthand for Doylestown Tweetup). I looked into what they were offering - and that's when I learned about the first ever local tweetup scheduled for the 24th.

So I went. All the people who had been tweeting back and forth about the event were there, and we all put on our nametags just like any other networking event Realtors go to all the time. But on this one your name was secondary - on your nametag you were required to put your twitter "handle" (which is just your account name like @CBeadling01) so that others knew who you were from the tweets you have filed, and they knew whether you were someone they wanted to follow based on your real-world conversation.

My guess is that when VH1 does their look at the '00s (have we come up with a name for this decade yet?) one of the things we will all laugh about is the tweetup. Just like pet rocks, parachute pants and the macarena, the tweetup will become a part of the legend of social networking.

But that is not to say the concept won't be around forever. What I saw in that room Wednesday night were a bunch of people with a similar interest gathering to meet one another and prospect for business (or for friends). As Realtors, we know that event well - we have just been doing it based on our memberships in the Chamber of Commerce, the local service club or the P.T.A. forever. This just brings a new (and free) spin to it all. Now you don't need an organization to generate meetings - a group of people with similar interests who have never met before can organize a time and place online and can show up with a basic "knowledge" of the other people based on what they have already read online.

Don't let the silliness of the name overshadow the underlying principle...social networking is not just about getting on facebook and telling your world that you saw a grey hair - it is also for extending your real-world network, which is what Realtors do best.

Go today to http://search.twitter.com and look up your town - see if someone is already meeting in your backyard and join them. If they're not, be the one who gets the ball rolling.