My blogging world just got a little more intense – I attended a San Francisco blog meetup. Luckily I didn’t attend alone because then I might not have come out alive. People tend to whip so many business cards at your head that you may suffer from a concussion if a friend weren’t there to move you out of the way.
Of course I’m exaggerating, slightly. The majority of people I met were interesting and intelligent, and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting about blogs, tech and embarrassing encounters people had with Ron Conway. Some people even laughed at my attempt of humor.
Blogger: “How’d you meet *Hannah?”
*Friend who saved me from a concussion
Me: “We met on a dating site actually.”
Bloggers around us start to gawk.
Stop giving me that look. I wanted to mix up my answer of “we met through DailyBooth.” I quickly shot down their dream and came clean though, which was met with some laughs.
I ended up connecting with a great group of people at the meetup, all of which I happily accepted their business card. In fact, their business cards saved me from bringing out the Post-its I had stuffed in my purse. However there were a few people who attended that were there solely to increase the readership of their blog.
These people would walk up to you and say, “Hi, I’m Mary and write a blog about painting my nails! Here’s my card!” They would then pretend to be interested in your blog and quickly wrap up the conversation with, “Well I need to continue to mingle! Follow me on Twitter!”
On our walk home, Hannah and I came to the conclusion that some people believe events are successful by the number of business cards they pass out. We know better though. Meetups are about the quality of conversations and connecting with people. So shove those business cards back in your pocket and forget about increasing your visibility; that will come naturally by taking an interest in the people around you and being real.
