Tanking at Tweetups?
Like you, I try to attend as many Tweetups as possible. They’re great for networking, nice for adding to your resume, and helpful in staying up on the latest happenings and technology. Luckily, being in Boston, there are several per day/week/month to choose from. But what I’ve noticed lately, is that I may not be cut out for professional Tweetup starlet: the more I go, the more I wonder if my networking skills are truly this bad.
When attending several Tweetups in Boston, you’ll find the same groups attending en masse. Maybe its the healthcare crowd. You always have at least 3 Twitteratti in the room. Higher Ed usually represents. But are we making it better or worse for ourselves by coming in cliches? Is it just about our own ability to branch out and mingle?
I’ve attended 2 high-profile Tweetups in the past month. Both of which, I’m sad to say I left early. I’m not great at the mix and mingle part, but do love being in on the conversations. I’ve found, for me, structured gatherings work best. Whether around a common theme, conference or short agenda, I’ve felt more at home and had an easier time connecting and talking with people. When left to just a large gathering of those who heard about the event, I find myself stammering, feeling awkward and needing an excuse to leave ASAP.
I’m trying to push my boundaries, rely less on my higher ed Tweetup going brethren, and flex those networking muscles. What are your tips for successfully navigating a Tweetup? How has your Tweetup experience been? Do you have tips on mingling to share? What are your faves?
Defining Interactive Marketing
I’ve been throwing around the words ‘interactive marketing’ lately and been met with odd looks. ‘We/You don’t do that’ is often the response. I started to wonder how many of us have changed our definition of what Interactive actually means in our marketing efforts. Am I just using the term incorrectly?
‘Interactive’ was once a term used just for web-based assets developed in flash or some other script. Now, its evolved into all that we do as conversation based communicators. Interaction is what we are requesting every time we put out a product for engagement. Blogs, social media, video are all forms of interaction with our audience. Products we hope they interact with and that leverage them to interact with each other. Is this what interactive marketing means to us and our colleagues?
Where once interactive may have described web-based applications that required users to click, they now demand that users communicate. Just as ‘marketing’ has changed, so has ‘interactive’.
How do you discuss ‘interactive’ marketing/communication efforts? Is everyone on board with this definition? If not, are you educating them?
Time for a Change, RSS Style
If you’re like me, you often rush through your RSS feeds skimming for the best stuff. Recently, I’ve found that more and more, I’m simply marking everything ‘read’ and moving on. Realizing this probably isnt the best use of my time, I’ve decided today to cut many things.
What I’ve found to be the least useful are tech updates – I usually see many of these via Twitter. Therefore, there’s really no reason for me to maintain them in my feed. Also, I tend to gloss over items from Mashable due to following them on Twitter.
Google Reader has a ‘Trends’ report section that allows you to see not only how often posts come through, but how often you read them. Looking through my report, I deleted anything that I read 5% of the time or less. That cut 4-5 blogs right there! Of course there are the obligatory feeds that I have to maintain from university accounts, but just being able to sort through them this way and cut them knowing what I tend to not read was phenomenally helpful.
I also created new folders – this way, I dont miss out on content I actually want to read. I tend to get caught up in wanting my reader at ‘zero’, so often things I’d like to read get tossed. Yes, I could recall them if needed, but really, once they’re marked ‘read’ I rarely go back to hunt through them.
After a cleanup, I’m at 59 subscriptions, which is manageable. To share, my reader folders are as follows:
- Analytics
- Career
- Content Marketing
- Fun
- Higher Ed Marketing
- SEO
- Suffolk
- Tech & New Media
- Web Design/Development
Do you use folders and trends? How many blogs do you subscribe to? How often do you purge without reading or otherwise handle getting through them all?
