Why building a successful online community requires time offline

You’ve got the twitter followers, you’re getting the thumbs up on Facebook and your stats are on the way up. But does anyone in the non-virtual community know who you are?

There’s no doubt having a good online presence is important for your hyperlocal site – and by that I mean a well-stocked Twitter feed, and tended Facebook page and all the other bells and whistles. But watch your stats go up when you get offline and make the connections. Read the rest of this entry »

The first Preston Tweetup videos

Me presenting at Preston Tweetup

The first Preston Tweetup that I organised in March 2009 was filmed and now the edited video has appeared online. It shows how twitter users in Preston got together to discuss how the web could be used for the Preston Guild in 2012.

The Preston Guild is a big celebration that happens every 20 years in Preston, Lancashire, UK to celebrate the city, its organisations and its professions. Everyone gets involved, but the last time the Guild was celebrate – 1992 – the world was a very different place and the Internet was not as widespread as it is now.

The tweetup was hosted by myself, through Blog Preston, and had support from Stage 9 Marketing, a local marketing agency, and They Eat Culture, Preston’s arts organisation. The venue we used was the New Continental, in Preston, which has free wi-fi and great drinks.

The videos are in sequence as the night was in four parts, the introduction (from me!), the break-off groups coming up with ideas, the feeding back from each group and finally the summing up. It’s a great chance to see what happened at the Tweetup and if you’re planning to go to one, wherever it is in the world, it gives an insight into what it’s like.

Watch part one – the introduction to Preston Tweetup

What the hell is a Tweetup?

Preston Tweetup in action

I thought I’d take the question above as a starting point. A Tweetup is a new concept and it’s something that is really starting to catch-on in some places.

I organised and hosted Preston’s first Tweetup just over a week ago and it was a roaring success. We had nearly 40 people in the room, many of them with wireless enabled laptops and mobiles, all contributing to a discussion on one topic.

The idea for a Tweetup is that instead of having a networking event or discussion where the conversation is completely physical you also have a virtual conversation going on. Bear with me, it does make sense. The structure of the event is an opening preamble and then a topic is discussed by the people in the room – often splitting off into separate groups. This makes it easier to manage.

For example, at the Preston Tweetup we were discussing the Preston Guild in 2012 and how the web can be used in it.

The discussions were flowing around the tables but also on twitter, take a look at the #prestontweetup hashtag feed and you can see all the good stuff that was coming out of people chatting about the topic. Yes, some of it went off on tangents – but that happens with any discussions.

The best thing about the Tweetup was that as an organiser I was getting instant feedback. If there was a problem with something I could pick up on it straight away by watching the tweets. I could also easily collect information after the event and condense it.

This backchannel conversation was incredibly useful and exciting. It also allowed some great interaction between the groups, so that people might take a question asked by one group and explore it and the then fling some more questions back out into the twitter stream for other groups to consider. There was a fantastic collaborative environment at the event.

So, I would really suggest giving a Tweetup a try. You don’t need 40 people there, maybe just 5, but get going with it and see what happens. And if you’re in the education or conference/networking sectors, you need to be on this. Doing it. Making it happen.