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Building Social Media Communities in the Real World.
Some of my astute readers (if I have any left) may have noticed that I haven’t posted here in almost a month. Don’t think that this means I haven’t been blogging.
OK and no I haven’t been blogging on my HP blog, Marketing Impressions. And no, I haven’t been contributing to the Conversations Matter blog (sorry Michael Brito).
But I still hold out that I’m not a slacker. I have been building a tech/social media community… in Boise, Idaho.
Many of you know that I am an Entrepreneur in Residence at Highway 12 Ventures. I of course still have my day job at HP. But you may not know (although you probably do) that I also run the TechBoise blog, hold monthly events as well as regular Boise area Tweetups.
Those of you who don’t live in a major tech sector no what I’m talking about when I say that Silicon Valley isn’t the *real world* (heck many of you who do live in SV know what I’m talking about).
When I started preaching Blogs and New Media Marketing in Boise, 4 long years ago, I was ahead of the market in California, and if you’re ahead of the market in California, you’re waaaay ahead of the market in Boise, Idaho.
When I first Joined Twitter, 2 years ago the only other person from Boise on Twitter that I knew of was Sarah Lewis. Today I follow hundreds of people from Boise and the surrounding area and in fact they are some of the most active Twitter users I know.
Smaller markets have a distinct advantage as well as a distinct disadvantage when it comes to building social media communities.
Smaller markets are easier to navigate
Smaller markets are more accessible. Want to talk to our mayor, local investors or local CEO’s? No problem. 99% of the time you can get a meeting with them with one simple introduction.
There are usually only two degrees of separation between anyone who’s anyone in second tier markets. Boise’s just not that big and people are more easy going.
Smaller markets have less critical mass
One of the problems smaller markets have is we just don’t have the sheer volume of tech savvy people that Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin or Boston have.
We don’t have a Google or Microsoft in our areas. We don’t have hundreds of VC’s clamoring around us. We don’t have A-listers, or even B-listers.
But that’s ok with us, because we don’t have 2 hour long commutes. We’re friends (real life friends) with the other tech people in our community. And our one VC firm will meet with anyone who emails them.
My Advice for 2nd Tier Markets
So what do you do if you want to grow your tech/social media savvy community and you’re not in Silicon Valley?
- Get everyone on Twitter talking to each other (in real life).
- Start a local tech blog.
- Hold regular meetups.
- Enjoy what you have and what makes you NOT Silicon Valley.
What about those of you from other second tier markets? What do you do?
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Hey Tac!
Here in DC I guess we do have a pretty decent social media scene. We have some big events like Tech Cocktail, and smaller groups, like the Social Media Club. I’m attending this event tomorrow night, this is an example of a fairly “big deal” social media event in DC: http://socialrockstarworkshop2.eventbrite.com/
One pervasive element in all business discussions around here is the Federal Government, so it will be interesting to see how Obama’s presence influences the social media scene here in DC.