Newcastle history being made!

Today is a landmark day in the history of Newcastle. On a lovely sunny Friday morning the first ever Newcastle ‘Tweet-up’ occurred.

In attendance, apart from myself, was Gordon Whitehead from The Marketer, Carlee Potter from the newly launched business women’s magazine Snobs, and last but not least, Belinda Leskiw from Classy Marketing.

So what the hell is a ‘Tweet-up’ I hear you ask?

A ‘Tweet-Up’ is when a group of contacts on the social networking website Twitter [wiki] meet up in ‘the real world’ and talk shop. Topics this morning varied from coffee to local government, to city image.

And now I hear you asking what the hell is Twitter and why would I want to join in?

Well Twitter is a social networking website where people with similar interests ‘follow’ each other and write ‘tweets’ which are 140 character long messages, statements, ‘micro-blogs’. People with similar interests tend to follow and interact with each other building their networks wider and wider as more people join in. Apart from the real-world friends I already have on Twitter the next largest group of people I tweet with are marketers, pr people, and those involved with ‘new media’, ie social media.

There are many different things that are discussed on Twitter, topics are as wide and diverse as you could possibly imagine. From the latest breaking news on the economic crisis in the USA, the latest and greatest announcements from various tech companies, ideas and proposals related to marketing, all the way through to sports results, weather, and even things as mundane as what people are eating for dinner.

The networking value of Twitter is massive. It’s so quick and easy to pass information on to a world wide audience, to ask questions and receive answers from a world wide audience, it’s no wonder we’re beginning to see so many businesses getting involved even if some of them really don’t understand social media and social marketing *cough-telstra bot-cough*.

And the last question on your mind of course is, why is this a ‘landmark day in the history of Newcastle’?

Well I’m glad you asked. Newcastle, like a lot of places in Australia, is still stuck solidly in the ‘old ways’ of doing things. We like our newspapers for news, we like our traditional media forms, we like our traditional marketing, we hate re-branding. Now of course I know not everyone in Newcastle is like this, but there is a big ‘Our Town’ mentality that has slowed and / or stopped progression in this city in the past.

When people like the before mentioned get together like we did this morning it’s the beginning of change, particularly in a marketing sense considering that 50% of the group are involved in marketing. The more these types of things happen, the more ideas are flowed, the greater the potential for change. No we’re not going to change the world with our ‘Tweet-ups’ but we’re taking aim at growing the notions of social media, social marketing, and social networking in a town where traditionally you have to pay an annual fee of $800 to join the ye-olde business network and attend at least 3 ‘meetings’ before anyone will talk to you.

Social networking, social media, social marketing is growing rapidly. Don’t get left behind because playing catch up, particularly if you’re a business and you try and jump on the running-late bandwagon, is awfully hard to do.

You can join Twitter here – Sign Up

You can find me here, Gordon Whitehead here, Belinda Leskiw here, and Carlee Potter here.

And lastly if you’re a Novocastrian and would like to know more any of the above, or you have a differing opinion give me a yell, I’d love to talk.