Last Friday, Rex Gradeless (@rex7) and Brandon Prebynski (@prebynski) held what they were billing as St. Louis’ Largest Tweetup ever at McGurk’s in Soulard. The event was widely hyped, (on here and elsewhere) but turnout has been deemed less than impressive. To the extent events like this are even covered in these parts, it has been slammed. (Our own review of the event itself will follow shortly.)
I think that the confidence, perhaps over-confidence, on the part of the organizers leading up to the event led to a more energetic than usual cheering of the event’s perceived failure. However, here at the SMR we are all about bringing folks together, getting them involved in social networking, and generally supporting the people and events in this town trying to do just that. So, by that measure, any Tweetup is a successful one.
Rex answered a few questions for me in the wake of the event, and in my opinion, he gave a much clearer impression of what the event was all about and the thought process that went into creating it than he ever did before the event actually took place:
Was all the bravado beforehand meant to be a little over the top, or was the intent to really beat the world record?
The truth is that we are the first ones, to my knowledge, to ever officially apply for a Tweetup world record with Guinness World Records. They accepted our application and we are waiting to see if they accept Tweetups as “world record worthy.” Records are made to be broken. You have to first record a record to beat one.
The intent was to have a good time. I think the people who attended had a great time. The Guinness World Record attempt was for fun.
Was the crowd bigger or smaller than you expected?
Given the circumstances, we would have been happy if we were able to meet one person from Twitter. As with many events, we received more RSVPs than actual attendees. A lofty goal was set at 100 tweeters. We would have been extremely happy to hit this number, but we were not disappointed that we did not.
In total, the event saw a head count of about 34 attendees; 19 verified signatures and a group of about 15 law student friends who showed up later for the Tweetup who were not as familiar with Twitter. Some are creating Twitter accounts now due to the event.
“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s okay. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot.” — Confucius
Is there a world record for Tweetups?
Not “officially,” according to Guinness World Records. Could the official record now be 34? We’ll find out. The submission is in their database of which they are currently reviewing.
Will you try again?
If at first you don’t succeed, try try again! Possibly. There’s much more to life than Twitter and amassing large Tweetups. But, facilitating conversation within communities, is what we are passionate about, and we would not mind organizing another Tweetup. It would be great to make this an annual event.
If we were to attempt to set a huge head count record, we would plan the event differently and months ahead of time. First, by connecting to people using Twitter more locally. I would be curious to know how many people from St. Louis actually follow me on Twitter?
Our planning for the event began late since we decided to have the Tweetup at late notice. Hence, all the sudden hype. There was definitely much hype about the event, but the head count was somewhat expected because of the late notice, short planning time (less than a week), and prior obligations due to the holiday weekend. We are pleased with the event, though.
Did you have fun?
We had a great time. The irony of the situation is that, although some Tweetups have attracted larger audiences in terms of head count, the Tweetup was a complete success in terms of social networking.
The most important moment was when I had an attendee approach me and say “This was my first Tweetup ever, and I want to thank you for putting this together. I have not had this much fun in a really long time.” Or the other guest who said: “Thank you for this, I came here to get my life back on track and I cannot tell you how much this means to me.”
To me, that’s what these events are truly about. It’s about connecting with people, talking with people, collaborating with people, networking with people, laughing with people, conversing with people. We enjoyed ourselves, and we enjoyed meeting everyone who attended.
—
The key things to success of a tweetup:
you show up, someone else shows up, you have fun, meet people
bonus:
lots of people, good food, good drinks
This had everything but 'lots', and I'd say the number that did show up was plenty.
Was Rex a little out in front of his own popularity? Could be. Could be too he picked a really lousy night and the people that did turn up constitutes a fine amount.
I say the more tweetups the better as long as they don't suck. This one did not suck.
I didn't attend with the anticipation of it actually being the largest. For me it's always about connecting and breaking bread together. If I get in a little flirting, a good beer and some hugs, I'm really happy. By the way, Rex didn't give me a hug, flirt with me, nor buy me a beer. He's not on my short list anymore.
Cheers.
I can't believe you couldn't get a hug?!
I would hug Todd, but I'm afraid I'd knock his hat off his head. Have you ever done that? Don't. He gets really upset. (j/k Todd, ahahaaa)
actually I did knock Todd's hat off once and he beat the sh*t out of me for it.
Tweetups are a crapshoot on turnout no matter how you slice it. I've seen as many as ~50 in St. Louis at the Royale earlier this year and as little as 12. The number isn't necessarily the goal though. People want connection. In the spirit of social media I'll say that quality > quantity any day of the week. Kudos to Rex for giving it a shot. Opening that initial door is by far the hardest part.
Also Todd threatened to punch me if I didn't post this.
-@JavaSTL
I feel kind of guilty, I run http://stltwitter.ning.com/ and didn't really know what was going on. I've tried to be as involved as I can, but I'll be the 1st to admit, I haven't been as involved as I'd like to be. Recently I've added some “Twitterators” to help spread the load, but we kinda dropped the ball on that one. I have the ability to email all 300+ members at once, and hopefully on our next attempt I can help build the hype too outside of RTs.
Nothing to feel guilty about, Andrew. I would however love to talk to
you about working together to promote upcoming events. The purpose of
this site is not to compete with your ning group but to help promote
it. So let me know what thoughts you may have about working together
for a common purpose.
Thanks for the comment.
Greg
oh absolutely, both sites have their focus. Feel free to drop me a line anytime at [email protected]