Twitter

A lot of people have a difficult time defining Twitter, which I think is appropriate since it (and social media in general) is still evolving into what it will become.  It started out as a way to quickly update your friends (followers) on what you were doing (similar to a Facebook status update), now has moved to include elements of that, but also includes people sharing news, event information, product information, sales information, quotes and other information that their followers might find useful.  For me, Twitter includes elements of all of the above, plus an element of fun.  I have been able to meet tons of great people at "Tweetups" (where people from Twitter get together and meet face to face, basically a networking mixer), learn about sales or discount offers at stores and restaurants, learn about social media, get in contact with media and other people that I would have never otherwise met, develop friendships outside of my "normal" circles, used Twitter to get myself and others into newspaper articles, and most recently got the Governor of California to follow me.


This week has been all about Twitter.  On Wednesday I won tickets to see the Sacramento Capitals tennis team play because I entered to win a contest they were hosting on Twitter, on Thursday I went to a Tweetup and the tennis match. On Friday one of my friends shared that the Governor was following her on Twitter so I quickly launched my campaign to have him follow me as well.  I first asked some other friends to help, second I developed a hashtag (#govpleasefollowme), had multiple friends retweet me, invited the Governor over to a pool party (although said he would need to bring his own food and beverages, I didn't want to get into trouble with the whole "reportable gift" thing) and after 10 tweets in less than four hours I got the official e-mail from Twitter that @Schwarzenegger was following me. Saturday I finally had @TresAgaves_RV follow me, they had margaritas at the tennis match, I tried to get them to deliver one to me in the bleachers, but evidently they don't deliver yet and I went to a birthday party (complete with "adult slip-n-slide) for a friend that I met through Twitter, where there was a couple that had been dating for eight months because they met at a Tweetup.

So that's my "social media week" in a nutshell, hoping for another great week to start soon ... remember I am available for full-time or freelance work (public relations, media relations, writing, social media).

UPDATE: To top off my week of Twitter, I saw a friend post that she was thinking about going to see SALT today (Sunday) ... about 20 direct messages later we met at the movie theater and saw an amazing movie. Also check out her blog about "Twitter friends."

Photo Credit: @SaccoSalon