Saturday, December 5, 2009

The Community and Reach of Twitter

Having recently had orthopedic surgery I was unable to drive the hour from Southern NH to get to @BostonTweetUp's first MegaTweetUp held at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (NERD) in Cambridge, MA.

My solution. Ask my
Twitter community for help.

When you talk about instant gratification, Twitter is it. Not only can you find nearly any resource you'd like, you can find it almost instantly. To adapt a phrase from Tina Turner's song Proud Mary, "The people on Twitter are happy to give."

That's what happened for me when I put the word out on Twitter that I needed a ride to the event. I tweeted to MegaTweetUp event organizer @JoselinMane that if I could find a ride, I'd be there. Joselin retweeted my request which was then retweeted and responded to by a few others (@CMajor, @bschwartz @AGirlMustShop @girlgamy and @WayneNH). In fact, my tweeps were out there asking their tweeps on my behalf using the power of their own networks.

Some of these people I knew and had met in person, others I had never met before either in real life or on Twitter, but yet all were willing to give me a hand. As it turned out, @AGirlMustShop, someone I had never met before and who worked in the same town where I live, was kind enough to pick me up for the ride to the event. My neighbor and fellow Tweep @WayneNH drove me home.

An interesting note about both my rides. As it turns out @AGirlMustShop is a very successful blogger, an area I have wanted to explore in more detail. She also freelances as a writer, which I'm just now sourcing for a client of mine. How fortunate. @WayneNH and I had previously met at a Forrester Research TweetUp in Boston, where we learned we were neighbors. Not only do we live in the same town, but we literally live across from each other with only a small duck pond and a few trees separating our back doors. He's also a huge resource on online statistics.

The sense of community and incredible reach on Twitter never ceases to amaze me. Not only did I find a ride to an event that I really wanted to attend, but I met a new interesting tweep and got to reconnect with a friend and close neighbor. The event, by the way, was awesome.

No comments: