After building up a number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, I thought the time was right to meet some of these folks. So I scheduled the first “Sitchie Meet and Greet.” I found an eager partner in The Lansdowne Pub (www.lansdownepubboston.com) which offered to provide an area and some appetizers free of charge in exchange for the business a Sitchie party might bring in.
I blitzed my Facebook and Twitter friends and followers for ten days prior to the party. I put together an invite on Facebook and sent it out to the almost 1,300 friends The Sitchie has on FB. By the day of the event, I had about 105 responses of ‘yes’ to attend and about 160 ‘maybes.’ I knew this number would not be exact, but I was suprised to find that only a small fraction of either ‘yes’ and ‘maybe’ showed up.
What’s more, the people who did come I had actually met personally in other places. The people who did not show, even though they answered ‘yes’ and ‘maybe,’ were my ‘friends’ through Facebook, but I had met very few of them in the flesh. It prooved to me that in the digital and viral ages, good old face-to-face meetings remain indispensable. It’s not enough to know someone through the ether. You need to sit down with them and talk; it’s then that you make a real connection, real ‘friends.’
It was an eye opening and instructive situation. Here I am building a social media network, which is built around viral connections, but that cannot –and should never– replace wholly live interaction as the basis of commerce and networking.
It only emphasizes to me that building a website is more than tapping away at the keyboard and clicking the mouse. I have to be out there, meeting new folks and forming new relationships in order for my internet business to thrive.
-RS
