{"id":5196,"date":"2013-07-15T05:45:15","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T09:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:39:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:39:05","slug":"marketing-monday-social-media-is-about-being-social","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/marketing-monday-social-media-is-about-being-social\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Monday: Social media is about being social"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year at SXSW Interactive<\/a>, I heard a speaker say something that made me want to leap up, throw my hands in the air and yell, “Amen!”
\nHe suggested that many new technologies, whether that’s smartphones, social media or the Internet itself, have been around long enough that we should no longer be infatuated with their gee-whiz factor and instead bring the focus around to how they help us live our lives better.
\nFor example, does anyone get all breathless talking about having cable television, or do they instead talk about their favorite shows?
\n(Sadly, no, I don’t remember whose talk this was. The result of taking in too many presentations and having them all blur together.)
\nSince social media has “social” right in its name, let me give you just a few examples of how Twitter has improved my social life:
\n

\"Amanda
Amanda Hirsch<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n1) Shortly after we moved to Brooklyn, I set up a saved search in TweetDeck<\/a> for mentions of my neighborhood, “Brooklyn Heights<\/a>.” I was curious what people were saying about my new home. One day I noticed the Twitter handle “ZENyc” talking about finding peace and relaxation in New York.
\nI was intrigued because ZENyc, also a blog, seemed so aligned with my blog’s mission of living life intentionally and because this person seemed to be just a short walk away.
\nAmanda Hirsch<\/a>, who has since retired her ZENyc blog and Twitter handle, has become one of my favorite people in Brooklyn. We went from tweeting at each other to meeting in person to hanging out on long, lovely double dates with our husbands.
\n
\"Ron
Ron Rona, aka Ronnie Numbers, clown MC in New Orleans Bingo Show<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n2) Several years ago, we returned from our now-annual pilgrimage to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival<\/a> and I spent a little time following bands and venues I liked. They included Preservation Hall\u00a0 (@PresHall<\/a>) and the New Orleans Bingo Show (@<\/s>TheBingoShow<\/a>).
\nIn New Orleans, there’s a lot of cross pollination in music, and one of the leaders of Bingo is also one of the managers at Preservation Hall: Ron Rona (@<\/s>RonnieNumbers<\/a>). When Ron followed me back personally, I tweeted with geeky enthusiasm and we began a Twitter conversation about New York, music and marketing.
\nThat’s turned into a real-life friendship with Ron and a magically surreal relationship with Preservation Hall, where I’ve gotten to know many of the talented people who are on the team behind the scenes and on stage. The Hall feels like a home away from home in NOLA.
\n
\"Colleen
File under “too good to be true”: I practiced piano at Preservation Hall when we lived in New Orleans in 2011, because a Twitter connection turned real-life friend set it up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"Karen
Karen Dalton Beninato<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n3) Also in New Orleans, I began following Karen Dalton Beninato<\/a> (@<\/s>kbeninato<\/a>) because she’s a freelance journalist whose tweets include a mix of the hard news of NOLA and fun travel pieces.
\nThis spring, I asked via Twitter if she might like to meet up while John and I were in NOLA. We had the kind of coffee date that felt like catching up with a long-lost friend. Because we’d been Twitter acquaintances for so long, maybe it was like meeting a pen pal.
\nDuring a Fourth of July visit to New Orleans, I enjoyed a hangout with Karen and her husband, Jeff, talking about the New Orleans music scene, the French Quarter real estate market, summer weather and so many other things that the time flew by entirely too quickly.
\n
\"Lauree
Lauree Ostrofsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n4) My newest from-Twitter-to-real-life friend is Lauree Ostrofsky (@<\/s>SimplyLeap<\/a>). A few weeks back, I saw she was tweeting back and forth with my pal Lara Zielin (@larazielin<\/a>), then shortly thereafter she was tweeting with Amy Throndsen (@amyserves), <\/a>who had been part of Blogversation in 2012<\/a>. I figured if Lauree knew both these ladies, there was a good chance I’d like her.
\nTurned out Lauree had recently left her home in D.C. and was housesitting in NYC while she prepared for her next big adventure<\/a>, so we met for coffee — and much like meeting Karen, time flew by and I knew I’d met a kindred spirit.
\nA few morals to all of these stories:<\/strong><\/p>\n