Do Not Forget Your BackYard When It Comes to Social Media
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Do you interact with your community when it comes to your social media strategies?
It’s funny how so many of us will travel thousands of miles to meet up with people of like interests and yet never think to see what is available locally.
Why is that?
I think it is human nature to always feel the grass is greener on the other side… but I have to wonder how often that is truly the case?
Now, I understand that population has a huge effect on this. After all, if you live in a small community of just a couple thousand people, then you are pretty limited as to what you can accomplish. In comparison to that, if you live in a huge metropolis… there are probably countless opportunities for you.
But no matter where you live… have you even tried to connect with others?
OK, so where is this coming from?
As you know I am a Social Media nut and a Twitter fanatic. I have also been posting a series that walks you through how to market with Twitter.
Today I was searching through Twellow and saw http://twellowhood.com so I entered in my location and low and behold I found some fellow Twitterers. So I contacted a few and within a few moments I was skyping with the owner of http://www.gerrykirk.net/. Now this is not a huge blog or anything but it did have some good info and the interesting part was the desire this guy “Gerry” has for growing the awareness of social media in my community.
Now the question might come up to you… what good is that going to do your business if you do not sell anything local?
Well the idea is that you are networking with like-minded individuals and therefore can form accountability groups, share ideas, and grow. It is not about the direct selling to others locally but instead about being able to talk with others that have similar interests.
Now before I go on… YES I KNOW THIS IS NOT NEW!
The problem is I personally have spent so much focus on reaching out globally that I failed to stop and look locally. You see with my business, I do 90% of the work out of my home office. In fact I am closing my downtown office and moving all the employees to their homes. The reason for doing this is my lease was up and it is something we want to try out… since I do not really want to renew the lease where the office is currently located.
Now working out of your home is great but you need face-to-face interaction with others and what a better way than to be doing it with like-minded people.
The great thing about these types of things is it does not matter if you have nothing to share or loads to share… whether you are a teacher or a student. I learn whether I am teaching or listening and it is all about that.
So as a result, I am heading to my first TweetUp here in my Northern Ontario community. If you live around here (which most of you don’t 
), I would love to see you there… but there are only three spots left (it’s just a small get together) at http://twtvite.com/2a3do0
Oh and on a side note, this is using a cool service called http://twtvite.com/ which is a great little tool for managing your own tweetups. So if there is not one available in your community… start one yourself.
[poll id="13"]
I aM GOING TO CHECK THEM OUT.
I like the general idea of marketing and socializing with like-minded people, but where I live is so remote that it just wouldn’t work for me. However, if I lived in a large metropolitan area (or close to one) I would give it a go. I think it is always great to meet others and see what info and strategies you can gain from their experiences and perspectives.
Thanks for the post. I run a local service oriented company. I like Twitter but struggle with how to connect with local people (they're the only ones to have any chance of needing my services.) The need for localized targeting in a small business' social media efforts seems very neglected in the “how-to's” of promoting a business through social media.
Not everyone has a realistic use for national and international clientele.
I am going to check it out.
Also, I am trying to email you but no joy. Can you help?
Hi,
A great post, thanks!
I completely know what you mean about meeting up with people who work locally too, and sharing ideas. I have been working out of a home office for over a year now, and although I love it, I do miss the interaction of working with other people. You can gain so much by simply sharing ideas and thoughts with other like-minded people. I'm definitely going to check out the site you suggested for arranging a tweetup, it's not something I've thought about before being new to Twitter, I'm going to see what it's all about.
Thanks,
Tom
Thanks! I'm so glad you placed this reminder up!
And here comes the idea: “Think globally, act locally!” – this has always been so true!
Big up for your post!
Excellent!
Well I know that San Antonio it is almost a waste of time. ALMOST everytime I tried to reach out to someone here I get no response or weird responses.
Like ?
So anyway this will encourage me to go about it a different way. I’m not from here originally and I found people here to be snobby and not to bright LOL
but I know there out there just have to keep looking.
Things like this usually don’t bother me when I’m walking into the bank.
I was thinking about opening a coffee shop and help young people learn about the NET,maybe I will do that. You can’t isolate. Thanks
Stumbled.
Absolutely right. I am from the UK and when browsing the forums I notice other brits and it does leave you wondering.
Social networking is easier to geotarget and also easier to actually start conversations with the people you find.
Be it just scoping out the local competition
Good to read that you are making local connections in addition to global ones. The move to have all co-workers operate from home sounds great, it will save costs all around.
The poll you have conducted could be conducted on a fixed population of a larger size by choosing separate groups and reiterating the poll after intervals of time.
“Now working out of your home is great but you need face-to-face interaction with others and what a better way than to be doing it with like-minded people.”
I cannot agree more with this post. It has been very interesting and iterated the need of interaction if you really want your business to grow. True, in social media, it is seldom for you to go and sell products, but by socializing, you are able to exchange and share ideas with one another and the next thing you know, maybe your closest online buddy and you will be trying to merge with each other and accomplish great things!