That’s right. You heard me. Sometimes the best way to build an online community is to build it offline.
When I began blogging back in February 2008, as far as I could tell there weren’t any bloggers in my city. I had to reach out to Chicago, Madison, Orlando, and Phoenix for advice. As my following grew, I began to become interested in technology news. I subscribed to TechCrunch and Wired.com, and they kept talking about Facebook and Twitter. So I joined them. As my interest in social media grew, I learned that there was not only a social etiquette to this new world, but also physical meetings taking place.
As far as I could tell, nothing was going on in my community. As a matter of fact, the closest place was two hours away in San Antonio. I Googled “social media san antonio” one day, and found a couple of names of social media leaders in that community and began to follow them on Twitter. I connected with Luis Sandoval and Jennifer Navarrete. From almost day one, they encouraged me.
One sunny south Texas morning in early February, I made the early drive to San Antonio for FreelanceCamp. Luis grabbed me in between sessions and began introducing me. “This is Holly Hoffman,” he’d say. “She is social media in Corpus Christi.”
I learned a lot that day, about project management, connecting with other freelancers, social media in general, but what I really walked away with was the impression that these people had seen a need to organize a community and they did it. They just did it. They wanted a Social Media Club, so they started a Social Media Club. They wanted a conference in the BarCamp style, so they did it.
One person, or a group of people, simply took the initiative. And Luis and Jennifer encouraged me that day to start a Social Media Club in my city. As I watched Facebook balloon in local usage over the next month and new local Twitter users trickle in, I knew now was the time to organize my city.
So what if the community didn’t number in the thousands like other cities? I slowly began to realize that social media wasn’t going to be taken seriously in my city unless we organized into a group, pooled our budding knowledge, helped shape some best practices, and provided a strong foundation upon which to grow.
As I stood up in front of 60+ people last night, some of them still scratching their heads over Twitter, I was struck with the impact of what we were doing there. When I asked how many were on Facebook to raise their hands, then Twitter, I noticed that some did not raise their hands at all - some were not even using social networks. And yet, here they were. Hungry to know. I wondered how long they would have waited, how long it would’ve taken for them to find their way to the right knowledge. Even if they would’ve found someone to help them with their business efforts in social media, would they have been snake oil salesmen? What then would’ve been this entire community’s idea of social media?
It wasn’t hard to launch Social Media Club Corpus Christi once I’d made up my mind that it needed to happen. I went to the website, downloaded the instructions, hopped on a call with Chris Heuer and a couple of other Texas Social Media Club folks, and made a Facebook event. I grabbed a few people who had a curiosity and passion equal to mine locally, and they tackled a space and sponsorship. We sent out our Facebook event and watched with bated breath as it spread from 10 attendees to 40 and to nearly 70. I never expected them to all show up. But they did.
As I looked around the standing-room-only crowd last night, I wondered that I could ever think there was no community to organize. ‘Just look at all of them,’ I thought to myself. ‘They are the social media community.’ I turned to my boyfriend at dinner afterward, looked around the restaurant and said, “They have no idea was just happened tonight.” Our little city has been teased (by myself as well) that we run two years behind technologically. Heck, 10 percent of our population still uses dial-up. But if we want that to change, then it’s time we did something about it.
As last night’s social media high wore off, a new buzz rose up - this time on Twitter. All of a sudden, the small handful of local users I used to have “tweet ups” with at tiny Thai restaurants had grown to nearly a hundred, who were chattering away about last night. @CarlaGEE tweeted: “Enthusiastic response CC to @smccc! 3 words: possibility, energy, innovation! Bring it on!!” And @zowieguy tweeted: “enjoyed yesterdays #smccc meeting - glad to see corpus catching up with the rest of the world :)”
Tiny cafes are no longer going to hold us. Casual, impromptu tweet-ups have been replaced by a leadership team, group-selected topics, experts teleconferencing in from across the country and sponsored venues. And in taking the community offline, what we’ve done is grown it. People showed up in person, and then they showed up online.
Now comes the hard part - sustaining and growing this fledgling community. Who’s with me?
You’re doing a great job, Holly.
Holly,
Words cannot express just how happy I am to have been just a small part of your entire growth. It’s an honor, but most importantly it makes me proud to see you really open yourself up and absorb all there is to learn.
There is no doubt that the road will be long, but along the way you will find partners, we call them champions, because they will be the ones to help carry the torch and ensure that the community is safe, and informed. Do not let the naysayers weigh heavy on you, nor should you allow “snake oil salesmen” to come into the community and attempt to rob everyone blind.
You are now just one of what will surely be a large number of guardians for your community. I am confident with your enthusiasm and leadership, your fledgling community will grow and sustain itself just fine.
If you ever need any help from either I or Jennifer, know that we are here. Even though we are two hours north, we all play in the same sandbox.
Good luck, and great job!
Holly,
You’ve really nailed it. I’m so excited about the future of this group and sincerely believe that you’re the perfect person to sherpa us all. Great leadership, great management, great mentoring. You’re the triple threat!
Warmly,
Chelle
What a great movement for our community. I certainly am interested in learning more facts about twitter and what kind of relevent information and insight I can gain to help me at work, play and volunteering.
I am with you!
Angie Flores Granado
Who said you needed to find a new job?! Instead, you created the perfect one for yourself. Kudos to ya!
Holly,
I know that this is “just” a post about social media, but it actually gave me shivers to read about how you’re changing your community. Congratulations on making a difference. So many people would say that organizing tweetups isn’t “making a difference” or “bettering the world” but I think strengthening your local community is just as valuable as other sorts of volunteer work.
Wow, how exciting! It wouldn’t surprise me if you found this to be another case of the first step being the toughest. It’s mind blowing to think that more people attended your social media community meeting than most cities in America have show up at their Council meetings. The rest is unlimited potential - congratulations and best of luck!
Great post! And very inspiring! Ironically one of the hardest parts about growing a social media community seems to be the social part, not the media. I just joined the Chicago SMC and I look forward to learning about your adventures. Thanks for sharing.
Holly
Great post! And I truly believe that building a community offline is infact more important than maintaining the one online. Its an interesting process, that twitter has brought into our lives with its system….I’m looking forward to tweetups so that at least I can meet those wonderful people whose updates I follow!
My only fear of social media is that somewhere down the line people might just get too involved into the digital world that the classic socializing will diminish and slowly fade away…..
Keep Posting!
Regards
Ketan
Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!
Hey Holly,
Followed you over here from your other blog — love what you’re up to now… congrats on finding such a perfect career path for you! Looks like you’re already doing great things with it.:)
well done, holly!!! oh man… i am proud of you!
Hi Holly
Well written and great point! I have been on the internet for a long time but my first real social interaction was Flickr. When I finally reached out to one local Houston photographer @christinebpc, a whole world opened up. We met in person and I found there were monthly Flickr meetups too. I took part in these for a few months and finally meeting local photogs who I was a fan of for many months was very rewarding.
I also began to help organize Twitter Meetups around town. We now meet monthly and have a local that made many of us @twitpins
Houston also has a monthly Social Media Breakfast, usually the first Friday of the Month. If you can come up for one, I’m sure you’d make a lot of contacts that are passionate about social media as you are.
A Community Manager starts by being a Community Builder because there’s nothing to manage when there isn’t clearly a community. You are right about recognizing the need and actually acting about that feeling. Nearly everyone feels the need to change but not everyone acts on that feeling. Great job!
Jonha