Twitter For Dummies
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Don’t forget that a huge benefit of Twitter is making offline connections with people you may not meet otherwise. If you’ve begun meeting other users with similar interests and want to get to know them in real life, consider hosting a tweetup.

A tweetup is a way to meet up with Twitter friends (and strangers) in real life. It’s a way to get to know a group of people better by hosting an event. Here are four steps you could take if you want to put one together:

  1. Build an invitation list of people with similar interests.

    Some tweetups simply set a theme or occasion and whomever is moved to attend, attends. You could do a bit more legwork and find specific users in your area who have been tweeting about your selected theme. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to gather people impacted by a natural disaster, to help discuss recovery. Perhaps it’s just an opportunity to gather and discuss a new business idea.

    Whatever the case, you could even consider making an actual Twitter list of all the guests you are hoping will attend.

  2. Send out invitation Tweets with a specific hashtag.

    Now that you have your list, tweet your invitation, perhaps addressing it to some of your desired attendees via direct message or @mention. Include an event-specific hashtag to encourage guests to start connecting with one another, spreading the word, and starting a conversation solely focused on the event.

    Aim to keep your hashtag as short as possible to make it easier to fit in 140 characters, and as specific as possible to ensure your community finds one another.

  3. Organize your actual event.

    Plan your event as you would any event — find a location, and figure out food, drink, entertainment, and everything else needed. Use your event hashtag to gather help from your Twitter friends who plan on attending.

  4. Tweet the actual event.

    As the event is going on, be sure to continue using the event hashtag to keep the conversation live. Make sure you physically display the hashtag, and if possible, the Tweets, at the event. After all, you have to use Twitter to communicate about the event you’re hosting to meet people you met on Twitter, right?

    Now that you’re networking with your Twitter followers in real life, you can continue hosting Tweetups and even use your hashtag between events to keep the community excited and interested.

About This Article

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About the book authors:

Laura Fitton was one of the first marketers to discover the value of Twitter for businesses and society. She founded Twitter app store oneforty.com and sold it to HubSpot. She’s now Inbound Marketing Evangelist for Hubspot. Anum Hussain speaks to thousands on how to effectively use social media - in classrooms, at conferences and even alongside Twitter’s Small Business Team. Brittany Leaning writes about social media strategy for HubSpot’s 1.6 million readers and has managed accounts for several well-known brands.

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