Tweet up + Festival = RocTwestival…

The night that I arrived in Rochester, the organizers of RocTwestival were holding their annual tweet up to raise money for a charity.

The last two years, HJMT Communications, LLC has been a sponsor of the event, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend.

Lisa Gordon, who runs our Rochester office, attended and was impressed with the event.

This year, it was held at a bar called, Easy on East.  The money that they raised went to benefit the YWCA of Rochester.  (In past years, it went toward Charity: Water.)

When Lisa and I walked in, there were already a hundred people there. We were greeted by one of our business associates and proceeded to walk around.  I was most interested in meeting the folks from the Social Media Club of Rochester.  I knew they had a pretty strong chapter and was interested in talking with the organizers.

I went up to people who looked a little older than the rest of the crowd and asked, “are you a member of the Social Media Club?”

They looked at me, shook their head and said that they were only there to support their children who were organizing the event.

So I went up to younger people ands asked them.  Most told me that they weren’t members but they attended the events from time to time.

In the process of meeting all these people, I met some really fascinating people like the chief blogger for Kodak, a woman who runs the Kodak community, an RIT professor who teaches social media, web developers, IT people and even people who make apps.  It was a great networking opportunity in a fun space.

“Over there,” Lisa said to me, “that’s one of the founders of the Social Media Club of Rochester.”

I quickly went over to her.  She was in a conversation with someone else but I interrupted.  I was eager to talk to her about how she runs her group and try to get tips on building the Long Island chapter.

“Hi, I’m Hilary and I’m the President and Founder of the Social Media Club of Long Island,” I said.  “I would love to find out how you run meetings and how you build up the club.”

She laughed.  “We hold our meetings once a month in a bar,” she said. “Our members drink, tweet, network and just have a good time. There is no educational component.”

I walked away a little disappointed. Then I realized that for some, it’s about the moment and for others it’s about what you learn to grow.  And then again I thought, maybe it’s a mixture of both the moment and the growth.