Lessons from the Exeter Twitterati

One of the greatest things about Exeter is the number of Twitter users. A search on Twellow.com yields a list of around 200 users which is pretty big for a city of Exeter’s size. And we’re not just any old bunch of 200 Twitter users – we have some really great people who are leading the social media scene in the South West of England.

Cue the photo above of Alastair Banks, modelling his iambanksy.co.uk mug. I met Al (@banksy6  to the initiated) over Twitter at the beginning of the year at roughly the same time as I met Adam Stone (@Rokkster ) – Director of Rokk Media. Had it not been for Twitter, I’d never have got to know Al, a Director at Optix Solutions, like I do now. I would never have called Optix and said “Hi, it’s Scott Gould here. I want to tell Al about my great marketing thought and what I had for lunch today”. Never. Wouldn’t happen.

But with Twitter something incredible happens. Interactions that would never take place, take place. And relationships that would take several business networking events to cultivate get formed very quickly. Why?

1. Innovation. When you connect on Twitter there is an understanding that both of you are innovative people.
2. Pressureless. At a networking event you have 1.5 hours to make as many connections as possible. Not so with Twitter.
3. Accumulation. They get to know you over many tweets, not one stellar interaction.
4. Restraint. In 140 characters, you can’t offload everything your business does. That’s a good thing

All of these lead to the holy grail of relationship… Trust.

Why else would I give David Thomas (@Bluegrass_IT ) my home phone number and chat to him for an hour about Social Media for free? Why else would Trey Pennington (@treypennington ) travel from Greenville, South Carolina to Exeter to meet a group of Twitter users? Why else does John Harvey (@ExeterCCM , i.e. the Exeter City Centre Manager) have the Twitterati of Exeter right behind him and ready to blog their hearts out to support him?

I’m compiling a list of the Exeter Twitterati, detailing how each person has interacted with me in an incredible way. So go on, add yourself.