Did you know that today, June 30th is World Wide Social Media Day?
No? Well don’t worry. It was the first one and it was coined not much more than a month or two ago by Mashable. Mashable is a social media guru’s internet bible. It is fully of blogs, articles, posts, about anything and everything social media. It is the epicenter of social media news, as well as information on the hottest topics – such as the new Apple iPhone 4 or the Droid, and reports on anything major happening in the world of technology.
So what is Social Media day? Mashable created this day in order to give people a chance to meet up and introduce themselves in real life, or to reconnect and network. In over 600 cities – big and small – domestic and international – people got together for a few hours after work and mingled. Some of the best networking can come from a general meet up with people you’ve already been interacting with. And the best part about Social Media Day is that if you’re not following someone, but one of your other twitter friends is, then you have an automatic introduction.
A lot of people on twitter work in similar fields. Primarily marketing, public relations, sales, and IT people congregate on line in certain communities and a day like this helps to bridge the gaps. It is one of the best ways to network and create collaborations and projects because you’re already familiar with some of the things people are already up to. And if for nothing else, you’ve created some excellent friends this way and it’s a perfect time to kick back, relax, have a beer, and enjoy the new relationships you probably wouldn’t have made if it weren’t for Social Media.
We won’t know til tomorrow if this was a success by Mashable’s standards, but it’s probably a safe bet. Use meetup.com to find more meet ups in your area. The hope of Mashable was to create one meeting a month in various areas. Take a look! And if there isn’t one in your area – it is really easy to start your own! Good Luck!