Using Twitter and WordPress to create and maintain friendships
As I tweeted earlier today, my posts for the day are all themed around friendships. I am a very, very blessed man. I am very lucky in that I have amazing people who inspire me every day, who comfort me when I’m down, who can confront me with the truth and tell me right to my face when I’m doing wrong, and who are always happy for my growth and improvement.
Last Friday, I had the privilege of having lunch with Rachel Black, whom I met (not surprisingly) through Anthony Nicalo (and I met both of them through Twitter). Rachel does research on water as well (from an anthropological perspective) and (yes, call me academic geek) it was awesome not only because of Rachel’s personality and charisma, but also because we both got a chance to talk tenure-tracks, publishing research, and potentially collaborating in projects.
I wouldn’t have access to the many wonderful individuals I have in the past year if it hadn’t been for Twitter. I met Melanie Hoyt through Twitter and even though she is in the US now, she’s coming to Vancouver soon and we’ll get to hang out in real life. I keep in touch with Yam, a friend I made here in Vancouver, through Twitter. So, in reality, Twitter has given me an opportunity to build new connections, friendships and to grow them.
So, when I was watching Lorelle’s keynote presentation at WordCamp Whistler (read my liveblog here) I completely understood where she was coming from. I have used social media, and specifically WordPress and Twitter, to create new friendships. And yes, maybe, just maybe, social media may actually help me land my dream job. But that’s another completely different topic.
In closing, yes – I DO know that sometimes I’m noisy on Twitter. But bear in mind that, to me, Twitter is a relationship-building tool. I have tried very hard to keep my @ replies to a bare minimum (I follow 300 people, and I would follow more if I had the actual physical capability to do so – I don’t follow everybody back simply because I can’t not because I don’t want to).
Yes, I have gained a lot from Twitter – I have made NEW FRIENDS. And for that, I am always grateful.
Related posts:
- Reflections on Twitter, “grow your network organically” and #nofollow
- Twitter as an online social space to hang out virtually and enable offline interaction
- Have we lost the bidirectionality of Twitter this early in the game?
- On the use of Twitter for personal interaction
- Petition to Twitter – change the tagline!
Yes I totally agree that twitter and wordpress are great tools for building friendships. I have met so many people online since I joined up on twitter and started joining conversations. I sometimes wish that I could participate more and comment more, but I still have a 9-5 job that makes demands on my time. I’ll often be watching the twitter action and thinking how cool it is to be making so many new and fabulous connections that never would have been open to me before.
Interesting post and glad to read you have already done what I believe (and hope) is possible!
I’m following lot’s of people like yourself on twitter to try and get an impression of the ‘vibe’ around Vancouver right now, before I move there from the UK in a few months time.
I’ll be sure to grab you a coffee once I’m there and I’ll introduce you to my OH too ( @Bampi )!
Great post Raul.
I’ve really been feeling this idea since joining Twitter just a little over a month ago. Having had the time since the holidays to explore it further, I was amazed to find just how great of a tool it is to build relationships and contacts. Through Twitter I came into contact with Yam, and although I’ve yet to meet him in person, simply by following him was I able to see just how big the Vancouver community is, and just how many opportunities there are to meet up with various people.
Twitter really makes engaging new people that much easier, and I think is going to make a big difference in the way the internet evolves over the coming years.