Building a Las Vegas posse

There are so many great tools for social networking these days. Who isn’t on Twitter and Facebook by now, right? While both of these are great for virtual meetings, I’m looking to expand that to actual face-to-face meetings. In order to do that, I need to find people in my basic area who are also interested in building their own social web.

For the past few weeks I have been focusing on building up the number of people I’m interacting with on Twitter from the Las Vegas area. To do this, I have been using twitterlocal.net to find tweeters in and around Las Vegas. I have a fairly basic rule set that I use as a guideline when it comes to who I do or don’t follow. For example, I usually don’t follow somebody if I’m going to be one of their first 5 followers. I also don’t follow people that look like they might be less than 21. This is mainly because if we schedule a meetup at a bar, I’d hate to exclude somebody I’ve gone out of my way to try and network with.

So what’s the benefit in all of this? Unless you are independently wealthy, we all have some sort of business or service that we offer. There is no better way to advertiser yourself than by going out and meeting a bunch of people who share common interests. Your first meetup may not turn up any new clients. Your second, third and fourth might not either. But, by keeping your name and face fresh in peoples minds, when it comes time that they or somebody they know need a service that you provide, your name should be on the top of their list.

I currently organize 3 groups on meetup.com. Each group has been having meetings on a monthly basis. We have some cross pollination going on with the groups, and that’s a good thing. People are getting introduced to different views on social media, blogging, self branding and promotion. My goal now is to introduce the 200 plus people I’ve found on Twitter from Las Vegas to our meetup groups.

If you are interested, here are the 3 meetup groups to join:
- Las Vegas WordPress Meetup Group
- Vegas Tweetup
- Las Vegas Social Media Club

On Saturday, January 10th at 5:30 PM, just after the end of Day 1 of WordCamp:Las Vegas, we’ll be having a meetup with all 3 groups invited. Join any of the groups above to get all the details. We’d love to see you out there!