Tweetup #4 Wrap-up! We had fun & Learned some things.

[Keith Burtis]

Tweet-up Intro for newbies

So I thought I might explain what happens at a tweet-up. It's really casual, we hang out at a local restaurant and basically meet up for some geek chat. Everyone gets to know everyone better and we are able to make face-to-face connections that we wouldn't otherwise make in the offline world.

Why Would we do this?

Simple, meet new people, make new contacts, network, share common interests, etc... the list goes on and on. The Buffalo Tweet-up group has been growing on twitter and here at the Ning group. I am wondering why more people aren't getting more involved in the physical meet-up's? Don't get me wrong, the folks that show, some new members, some old, are all having a great time and maybe even learning a thing or two. However, please let us know if there is something we as organizers are missing. Let us know if there is a more convenient time for YOU to come. We would love any feedback you could provide.

What did we talk about in tweet-up #4?

The Tweet-up's are pretty informal. Just like friends hanging out....but sometimes we get a little geeky and talk about tech, blogs, podcasts, twitter, and all things social media.

Tonight we were pretty random. We talked about Twitter and what some of the social, economic, and institutional roles it might play, Specifically speaking about possible roles this might play for UB Staff.

We also talked a little bit about monitoring conversations. We talked about using Twitter Search for scanning twitter. What we didn't talk about though was the ability to scan certain keywords or phrases within Twitter Search and subscribe to them as an RSS Feed. Here is the feed for "Buffalo Tweetup" Click the orange RSS button and you'll see all the tweets with these words. In fact if you look at the feed, it looks like we missed @BackinBuffalo! That stinks, sorry about that. If anyone ever encounters this problem send a Direct Message to @keithburtis, or @jmilles. very sorry about that.

Another monitoring tool that we talked about was Google Alerts Google alerts can be set up from your google account to monitor the entire web for any key phrases or words you might like to track. If anyone has questions on why this is valuable please comment below and I'll try to answer as best I can.

We also talked about Kevin Lims successful blog and how he uses video and multi-media to keep people engaged. Watch this video and tell me what doesn't seem to fit!

We also talked about The Shadow & James show and how they got involved with Niagara on the Lake 2008, by sponsoring tweet-up badges for the whole conference!

Furthermore, and I know we are forgetting other topics we discussed Keith Burtis' video and live streaming. We talked about how I will steal some of Kevins' Ideas to help make my stream and podcast more fun!

Of course I forgot some items, but I hope this is a good overview of the topics we covered. Again, this was all in a relaxed easy going setting and everyone had fun...I hope :)

Feel free to add anything I missed below.
Thanks
Keith Burtis

[Kristina Lively]

excellent post, Keith. Thank you for summing things up.

Bottom line, don't be shy. Join us. We're a fun, friendly, helpful group who are always looking to make new friends. Come alone or bring your spouse/partner, it's all good.

[Kristina Lively]

PS: BackinBuffalo, sorry we missed you! we were in a round table back towards the restrooms (not that this does you any good.)