This past Saturday, I participated in an experiment: Tweetcamp! The combination of a Tweetup and a BarCamp. (Those links are to definitions!) What this created was a chance for people who use Twitter to come together offline to create community. There is no agenda to the conference as it is co-created by the participants throughout the day. It is for the community, by the community, all thanks originally to Twitter.
This month’s Net2 Think Tank asks: How do real-world (offline) events fit into social media conversations and campaigns?
I think that my reflections about Tweetcamp are an excellent fit to answer this question! And I hope they help you think about the way your organization uses opportunities online and offline to create community.
What worked?
Cross-section of participants: It was great to turn up to an event and have every person I talked to have a different line a work, a different reason for using social media tools, and a unique goal for what they wanted to get out of the day. One way to accomplish this is to ensure you have a diverse set of organizers – you will tap into networks that do, eventually, overlap, but the influencers you target will push a great diversity of participants toward the event.
