This past week, I encountered a friend in real life I had not met previously. However, thanks to social media, I was well aware of her in advance of our meeting. And, once we connected, it was as if we had been personal friends for years.
If you are new to social media, or are considering climbing on board, please know your online prescence gets noticed – and eventually rewarded. Keep in mind, if your social media contributions provide good content for your followers, garner engagement, and add value to the conversation, you’ll acquire friends worldwide as well as right next door.
Therefore, when you are at your next local event or meetup, people will go out of their way to find you and say hello. Tools like Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook help expedite a real world connection.
Talk about an easy icebreaker. You are already friends! Grab a drink and engage in some face to face interaction that’s sure to move the conversation to the next level in minutes.
Social media rocks. What do you think?
P.S. This post is dedicated to Andrea. Thanks friend!
Duane Drzadinski is a marketing professional, father and social media enthusiast. Connect with him and continue the conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Dr. Z. Marketing 
I agree. At a recent event, another professional and I racked our brains for a few minutes, trying to remember where we had first met, when eventually, we concluded that we never had met. However, she and I both received each other’s e-newsletters, we had “liked” each others’ professional FB pages, and we had subscribed to each others’ Twitters. We had seen each other’s photographs through multiple sites. Through LinkedIn, we knew we were connected by multiple relationships with people who know both of us, and we therefore, felt quite familiar with each other despite that we hadn’t ever actually met F2F.
Thanks Marlo! It’s encouraging seeing others encounter real life effects because of a social media presence.
Social Media is a great place to “meet” people online and becomes the jumping off point to begin developing a relationship and then take it offline / F2F. Not a week has gone by in the last 15 months where I have not met someone F2F with whom the relationship started online through Social Media. Duane, in fact you and I met via a referral through Social (Foursquare).
Thanks for the comment Mark. Yes, social media is a powerful tool. Use it for good, and your life will become richer because of it!