Creating A Social Balance

February 11th, 2010

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Last week I wrote about networking events and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

On Monday I had another chance to do that and boy did I step far outside of my comfort zone. I attended Social Fresh in Tampa, FL with our Strategy Analyst. Anyone having anything to do with marketing, no matter how indirectly, should attend Social Fresh. We probably didn’t need to fly across the country for this event, but the list of speakers were too good to pass up.

I really want to highlight a few presentations and panels, but I think I will turn those into their own blog posts. Stay tuned!

Today I want to share a few things that relate to my previous post about networking. I really like the networking opportunities events like Social Fresh provide. The organizer made sure to give the attendees plenty of time for socializing by leaving a half hour between sessions for follow-up questions, networking and a quick recharge. Many conferences I’ve been to in the past are quick to jump right into the next presentation, which can take a toll on the attendees – especially after a long day.

People took full advantage of the free time, but while I noticed a lot of chatter in the halls and common areas, I noticed even more chatter on Twitter. I was tracking #sofresh throughout the day and it was interesting to see how much conversation regarding the event was happening online.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think there was a great balance between face-to-face networking and online communication, but it made me think about myself and how I would prefer to network. I like to collect things, so grabbing a business card and putting a face to the name is important. With that said, I probably did 75% of my networking via Twitter. I didn’t do that because I was afraid to approach people, but it was the most convenient way to interact at the time. Did I go against what my previous post said? No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t mean I didn’t eventually meet up with them or arrange for future communication. I think a lot of the complementary conversation happened online because it was immediate, in an open forum, without ever disconnecting from the panel. We were able to have real-time conversation about what was being said, what we were absorbing and our thoughts about the experience.

In fact, some of the panel moderators allowed for questions from the audience to be sent via Twitter. That made it easy for those who couldn’t be present or who were in the other session happening at the same time. One presenter even encouraged us to correct him on Twitter if we noticed a mistake!

So while it is important to man up and face your networking fears, don’t be afraid to balance that with what you know. If you dig Twitter, use it. I might not have a big pile of business cards with me this time, but I managed to get 34 new followers on Twitter and I intend on following up with each one.

Tagged with: Community Conferences/Conventions, social media

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