TweetupSL 2. Meet your tweeps
Summary – Sri Lanka’s Twitter meet up, TweetupSL is happening for the second time on the 27th of August 2011 (this Saturday) at the dialog future center and will take place from 5 PM to 8 PM. Confirm your participation via tweetupsl.org
A chance to meet your fellow tweeps in more than 140 characters is the theme of Tweetup SL. For those who don’t know, a Twitter status update is set at a maximum value of 140 characters allowing for byte sized communication updates. As for what a Tweetup is; it is a global term for a physical gathering of Twitter users (or tweeps). The reason for this being such a unique experience is that unlike Facebook or Google+, the need for a real name is not required by Twitter and therefore people can continue communicating with each other via Twitter without ever knowing the person on the other side. Meeting these people face to face is a unique experience where everyone finally gets to put a name and a real face to the normal, the crazy and the downright outrageous usernames they communicate with. (My personal Twitter account is @kiriappeee, just to give you an idea of what craziness can be found out there).
TweetupSl was started last year as what could be described as an almost spontaneous idea by @udaraumd @rebelinpurple and @moshanthi wanting to meet up for coffee. You can read more about the first TweetupSL here. Within a very short span this gathered not only a crowd of over 100 but also several co organizers from the Sri Lankan Twitter community. The event was held at Coco Veranda whose twitter account is in fact very popular amongst the Sri Lankan Twitter community.
This year the event is set to be held at the Dialog Future World and has 369 confirmed participants setting a stage for it to be almost 4 times bigger than last year’s event. It’s not bigger with just the number of participants but there’s also a much larger interest from sponsors with Dialog (@dialoglk), Coco Veranda (@cocoveranda), Gihan Bookshop (@gbslk), Perera and Sons (@PereraAndSons), Kiss 89.8 (@KISS898), ITN Sri Lanka (@ITNsl) and Bloom Room (@bloomroomlk) coming forward as sponsors for the event.
With an increasing number of active tweeps in Sri Lanka and a growing enthusiasm for this kind of social media openness via Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook Pages and Events, gatherings like this may soon become much more common than what was thought possible just a few months ago. Companies pay attention. If you haven’t begun active engagement with the online community yet now might be a good time to think of your social media strategy since with events like this being an ideal chance to physically interact with your followers and influencers.
It’s still not too late to register for the event via the TweetupSL site where you can also vote for several Twitter awards such as the “Twentertainer” (Twitter Entertainer) or Tweetaholic of the year. Hope to see all of you there.
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