The Power of Social Media European Street "Tweet Up"

Just another day of the week. Matt and I are hanging out in Riverside, our favorite neighborhood in Jacksonville. Matt heads over to Sunday Tattoo to get his newest tattoo touched up by his artist Aaron, and I head to European Street for a 5 PM beer with our friend, Jeff. Half an hour later, Matt joins us with a sore and bandaged arm, and we begin to enjoy our beers.

A few minutes later, we see some familiar faces, ones we've met in person, and those only online, via Twitter and other social media. Little did we know, Kerry Spector, the Spectator organized and set up the European Street "Tweet Up", a meet up and mixer for Jacksonville twitter people. Oh the powers of social media. We all put on our name tags, twitter handles (mine is @sally_ann).

It was so great to meet new people and talk about things in Jacksonville. We just hit our one year anniversary for living in Florida, and some days it feels so new still. We have a handful of friends, but it's always nice to meet new people in the community, small business people, and those that are just excited about what is going on in the city.

And how funny to meet people that you know on Twitter. Putting faces to names and making new friends. Social media is so wild. I don't know how many times I've met someone in person, only to find we're Instagram, Twitter, or friends on some social media site. Or the one time I met someone at the market, and she sheepishly came over and comically admitted, "uhhh… I totally stalk your Instagram." Makes me laugh and love the connectivity of the internet. It's amazing to be able to connect in more ways that just in person, especially for someone like me, that spends all of my workday at home alone in my sewing room. Social media is such a huge thing for us small business people and bloggers. 

And of course it doesn't hurt that my boyfriend is becoming a big deal and local celebrity the longer we live here. Matt is a local man around town, literally, that's his job. He (and I) shoot videos around town, reporting on "what's good in Jacksonville". He works for the Florida Times Union, our newspaper here in Jacksonville, writes a weekly restaurant review, appears on Jacksonville's version of The View every Friday, and we shoot events around town. You can see his work here.

What a blast! And it helps that European Street has BOGO beer for their happy hour from 4-7pm I'm so looking forward to the next one and becoming more connected in the community. And we even have a potential doggie date for Zeus coming soon.

Find me on Twitter!