For those of you not familiar with the acronym IRL, it means In Real Life. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jim Thomsen, who is one of the night editors for the Kitsap Sun as well as a true crime novelist. As we sat down with our beverages (a smoothie & a chai latte) at local Bremerton coffee house Cornerstone Coffee, we discussed marketing. Sounds pretty run of the mill?
The testimony for Social Media in this story is the fact that Jim and I met on Twitter. After submitting an article to the Kitsap Sun, they began following my updates as @JmeLee. Because Jim is an employee of the paper, he took notice of my updates as well. Through the Direct Message (or DM) feature, we discussed marketing theory, social media, and how awesome Bremerton (Go Bremerton!) is. Shortly thereafter, I received a friend request from Jim on my facebook account.
That brings us up to yesterday when we decided to sit down and share ideas IRL. It was a very positive experience that reinforces my beliefs in the importance of social media. I frequently hear the argument that participating in online networking takes away from the face to face experience. I say that it cuts through the showy garbage and puts you in touch with the people you really want to know. @JimThomsen is someone who I would probably never “run into” at the grocery store as we live very different lives on different schedules, however, the asynchronous environment of social media is a perfect place to develop relationships.
Start following people you admire on Twitter. You never know when the opportunity for collaboration may arise. Thanks Jim!
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