I went to my first Tweetup last weekend. Before I say anything else, let me first point out how awesome it is that Madison has an amazing group of people doing this stuff. For anyone interested, there's a social media breakfast being organized for a week from today as well: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23smbmad.
So I went to a Tweetup and I met some really cool people. What struck me was that this is the culmination of what social media should be. I had a few "real life" friends that I knew were going. I also knew a few people through Twitter. But everyone there I knew within three, and most likely two, degrees of freedom. I'm a pretty social person but if that wasn't the case I might not have shown up. I'm sure there are other people that feel this way.
This is why social media is so powerful. You do what your peers do. Social media provides a unique outlet to grow that network. As marketers are realizing, it's also a unique opportunity to influence those people in ways that weren't possible before. In any case, the reason that social media, and the Tweetup phenomenon, is so successful is that there is already an implicit level of trust in that network.
Social media is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A lot of people have been at work trying to define social media as well. For a humorous take on what it means to some people check out this post on fanboy.com. To me though, Social media is a way to find other people interested in the same things that you are.
I think about how you met people with similar interests before social media. Generally, it was through your group of friends. If you were really motivated you might use the newspaper to find out about local hobbyist groups. Way, way, way back in the day we actually had something similar to current social media through the old Bulletin Board Systems (Yes, I'm a geek, and yes, I dialed up to BBSes on our Apple II with a 300 baud modem). Now, if I want to find someone near me who's interested in skiing, I can just search Twitter. I love it.
For me, social media is all about enabling interaction with like-minded people, even if just digitally. I had a great experience at my first Tweetup and I'll be sure to attend more in the future. When I do though, I'll also be sure to explain to my girlfriend the Direct Message I got on my phone a little more clearly: "Great meeting you last night. We should definitely do that again sometime. :)"
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