I am so happy at how many people showed up today at the first inaugural Austin Blood Drive Tweetup. I spoke with many staff members at the Blood and Tissue Center, and they all agreed that the Tweetup more doubled their traffic that day and brought in more first time donors than they had seen in a long time. They were also happy because there is a need for blood July 4th weekend and it would have been incredibly slow had we not showed up. Considering the first blog post with the instructions for donating didn’t go up until Sunday and we also managed to get a raffle, a sammichometer, a birthday cake for Mike Chapman, a visit by Erica at KUT, a mention in the Austin American Statesman, and custom stickers for the event, I’d consider this event a huge success.
For future events, I will have an official sign up as per the suggestion of Alex Jones so we can know who is coming, when, and get a better headcount.
There were so many good people involved in this Tweetup. The best part? Everyone who came in took part to make a difference. It wasn’t about self-promotion or networking. There is something very refreshing about that and I intend to duplicate this result when Grant Hutchins and I take a bunch of Burmese refugees to “Blues on the Green” on July 9th.
I feel like a broken record sometimes, but social media is a communication tool. Just like a cell phone. Communication facilitates action and we now have the tools to make things happen so much faster and easier than before. Quit Twittering about the donuts you eat in the morning. Stop throwing up post after post about the Fail Whale. DO SOMETHING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA. This will facilitate the inevitable cultural shift towards a society that rewards those with a message rather than merely those who can afford to push their message out. If you don’t do something with social media, people will ultimately see it as a waste of time.
I have to thank sharinghope.tv superstud David J. Neff for organizing this event with me. Props should go to Mike Chapman for delivering some killer posts on the Austin Social Media Club website, as well as the countless others who took time out of their days to blog about the event. If you didn’t come by, you missed out on the cool stickers and the sammichometer designed by Cesar Torres. My thanks to Tarus Balog at the OpenNMS Group for sponsoring the totally awesome sammichometer.
Check out the photos by visiting our Austin Blood Drive Tweetup Flickr pool.
15 responses so far ↓
1 The Fail Whale Fan Club » Arrived for the Cake, Stayed for the Blood Drive // Jul 4, 2008 at 6:20 pm
[...] Drive Tweetup (ABDT) was organized, announced, and executed all within about 72 hours. Based on a recent post by Michelle Greer, one of the organizers, ABDT effectively doubled the donation center’s [...]
2 Mike Chapman // Jul 5, 2008 at 9:35 am
Michelle, not only did this get some good local attention, it was noticed all over the country. You and David showed some real leadership. The really cool thing is that you showed how using the new social media tools can make it happen so quickly and effectively. This was a great event. You’re so cool!
Mike Chapmans last blog post..Blood Drive Tweetup
3 Social Media Club Austin - » Blood Drive Tweetup a Success // Jul 7, 2008 at 11:33 am
[...] out these other blog posts on the event: The Fail Whale Fan Club, Every Dot Connects (@sheilas), Michelle’s Blog (@MichelleGreer), FI Space (@daveiam), and the Twitter Queen herself, [...]
4 Verysupercool Sue // Jul 8, 2008 at 8:01 am
Bloody good job Michelle! You and David really pulled this one off, and in such a short amount of time. Hurray for Social Media!
Now, I’ll always remember the first time I gave blood… in the summer of ‘08, at the first Austin Blood Drive Tweetup! It was great to meet you!
P.S. Thanks for sharing your teddy bear.
5 Phil801 - Geek Blog » Announcing the first quarterly Serenity Foundation National Bloggers Blood Drive! // Jul 9, 2008 at 6:35 pm
[...] out that someone else recently did something similar in Austin, TX. Michelle Greer just hosted a blood drive Tweetup in honor of her sister who has ALL (the same Leukemia that Serenity has). They had a great [...]
6 Make Blood Shortages History with National Bloggers Blood Drive Day « SharingHope blog // Jul 11, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] if you don’t DO SOMETHING with social media, people will ultimately see it as a waste of time. [...]
7 One Simple Comment = 100 Lbs of Food Donated | national real estate opinion column - agentgenius.com // Aug 25, 2008 at 3:21 pm
[...] media group, make your networking events once a month center around non-profits… Austin had a record breaking blood drive recently and plans on helping the Capital Area Food Bank to the best of our abilities! Post by Lani [...]
8 I’M OFFICIALLY BANNING ALL TECH HAPPY HOURS | Michelle's Blog // Sep 10, 2008 at 11:28 pm
[...] for a very useful open source project called OpenSims. Mando Escamilla and Whurley presented. The Blood Drive Tweetup I organized with David Neff and attended by the coolest Tweeps ever helped save dozens of lives. [...]
9 I’m Presenting On Making Social Media Matter at Refresh Bryan/College Station | Michelle's Blog // Oct 1, 2008 at 8:32 am
[...] Social Media Turns Everyday Citizens into Superheroes”. I’m going to be presenting the Blood Drive Tweetup for the first time in public. While creating my slides, it was amazing to remember how many people [...]
10 Malachi Kelly // Oct 21, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Fantastic Information on traffic generation
11 greg@leukemia information guide // Nov 8, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Great job all. It’s amazing how such a little thing as donating blood can help so many.
greg@leukemia information guides last blog post..Cervical Cancer Facts
12 SMBFinance // Apr 28, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I am totally impressed. I am a very regular donor at the CTBTC in Austin. They call me all the time to donate platelettes. Some days they get down to a two day supply for all the hospitals in CenTex they supply blood products to. Good work….You made me a regular follower of your blog (and twitter!).
13 Sebastian Deutsch // Jun 14, 2009 at 1:36 pm
If you share your photos with http://img.ly/, you could tag people with their twitternames – that really helps remembering who is who
14 Why Facebook’s Acquisition of FriendFeed is Culturally Significant | Michelle's Blog // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:16 am
[...] never tried to exclude my circle to just people who have a lot of followers. Whether it was the Blood Drive Tweetup, Twestival, a NameCheap contest, a GeekAustin meetup or another one of my social networking [...]
15 Social Media For Good Is Alive And Well In Austin, Texas // Oct 16, 2009 at 11:24 pm
[...] making a difference. I mean, it’s really not all that surprising that my first Tweet Up was a Bleed Up! I gave blood for the first time in my life, summer of 2008, due to Michelle Greer and David [...]
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