Tweet-up – When people follow each other on Twitter meet in real life.

Now we have all heard of the tweet-up, and the truth is it gets a bad rap in most places. Why? Well it usually end up being a group of the technophiles in the area that are not exactly prospective clients. So how can we throw tweet-ups that bring people together to help make us more money with our business and build valuable relationships?

1. Focus

When it comes to a tweet up, it is all about quality over quantity. For example I was able to throw a tweet-up in Chicago two weeks ago while I was in town for the InsideCouncil Superconference. This was a perfect place to have a focused tweet-up with general council, lawyers, lawyers coaches, and other people in my industry all in the same building. I was able to meet prominent bloggers like Reese Morrison, Ed Post (the mysterious man behind Blawgreview), and a number of others – including Karen Carielo, one of the organizers of the event. It was all illustrated over Twitter, with personal reminders to people as I met them through the conference.

2. Find

How did I find people that were interested? I started by setting up some searches. I used tweetdeck to search, but you could really use search.twitter.com or any other search to monitor people talking about the event. Each time someone mentioned the Superconference, I sent an @reply to the person and suggested they join in for the tweet-up. Did they ALL come? No, but many of them did. They are at a conference- what else is there to do? We all met up for drinks at the hotel bar. It was a huge success, and I have kept in touch with a number of the participants since then.

3. Free

This is my favorite part of the tweet-up, everyone pays for their own drinks. Its really just like online social media. The only cost is your time. So give it a try, the next conference you attend, or the next time your in a big city- throw your own tweet-up.

Source by Adrian Dayton