Tampa TweetUp.

Saturday night I was drinking red wine, munching on pretzels and tweeting with some 60 new tweeple at Walker Brands. Why spend three hours with a bunch of strangers and their keypads seeing random text notes under 160 characters of what they are doing, thinking and why anyone should care on a big screen?

Tampa TweetUp @Walker Brands

I was curious.
This was the fifth gathering sponsored by The Tampa TweetUp. It was organized by Tampa Bloggers’ Founder Josh Carrico and Brand Tampa Creator Julia Gorzka, both self-proclaimed social media junkies. The first official Tampa TweetUp was held in March.

I’ve been tweeting for a couple months, follow me @Brandingdiva. I see how it can be a good communication tool and a way to bring awareness to your business. Has any of this tweeting translated into cha ching, can’t report that yet.

Was it fun and worth my tweet time?
Yes. I met a bunch of cool people (bloggers, marketers, and business owners) that I would likely have passed by in my regular life walk. Many of these tweeters have checked out Oddpodz and signed up. That’s a good thing. I also connected with a couple reporters who could become meaningful contacts and I witnessed how an online phenomenon like twitter expands its purpose and passion offline. And as a bonus the TweetUp hosts facilitated 30-minute think tanks where guests could collaborate on some creative issues and learn about more about tweeting.

If your community offers TweetUps, I’d say check them out and support the effort. If your community is not hosting TweetUps yet, jump in and be a tweet leader. It’s a powerful new way to further bridge technology and business relationships.

For more on the Tampa Tweet, visit Tampa TweetUp, Tampa Bloggers’ and Brand Tampa. And note the Twitter Hash Tag is #tbtweet. Tag your posts with this code and all the Tampa TweetUper will get the tweet.