Charlottesville Tweetup Roundup

The 2nd Charlottesville Tweet Up was held last Friday at Rapture on the Downtown Mall and it was a blast – an excellent way to spend an hour or so on a Friday afternoon, meeting friends “IRL” – In Real Life – an often infrequent experience in this online world. Nearly twenty folks showed up – quite a few more than attended July’s meetup. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to share time and conversations with these folks.

I feel more closely tied to Charlottesville thanks to the relationships I am building through Twitter.

Mark your calendars – Charlottesville Tweetup 13 March at Rapture(?) – either lunch or happy hour.

- Hi, I’m Jim. (conversation ensues) Five to ten minutes (or more) later – Oh, I’m a Realtor.

- Hi, I’m a Realtor (and my name is Jim).

See the difference?

Part of the new paradigm shift in marketing with social media is this – rather than talking to or at people, being present is part of the battle for consumers’ confidence and trust. Give back first. Business will follow.

What do you think about this?

One thing this event did was cemented my thought that having multiple Twitter accounts (in my situation) is a mistake. I said on Lee Lefever’s (of Common Craft, who produced the video below) blog this morning:

I’m struggling with this myself – I recently set up Twitter accounts for three of my blogs – each serves a different real estate market – and I initially thought that I would tweet from each one. Almost immediately after I wrote and published the respective blog posts announcing the new accounts for readers to follow, I realized the simple truth about Twitter from a (my) user’s perspective – I don’t want to follow a blog. I want to follow the person who writes the blog.

So – I’m already considering abandoning my three new accounts and keeping the focus on my account – @JimDuncan – because I suspect readers/followers feel the same.

While I’m not fully prepared to abandon the Twitter accounts for RealCrozetVA, RealCentralVA or RealWaynesboroVA, but I have come to this simple conclusion – I wouldn’t want to have lunch with @RealCentralVA, but I’d be inclined meet @JimDuncan.

For the uninitiated – What’s Twitter?

Twitter’s not for everyone, and that’s just fine.

*I’ve noted most people on Flickr, and there are two additional pictures that highlight Rapture’s nifty meeting space