The best things in life are often the things you didn’t see coming. That’s why I was thrilled to receive a message from my friend Ted Rubin a few weeks back, telling me that he was coming to town to speak at the Brand Innovators conference in Denver, CO. Ted suggested we spend some time together, and I naturally agreed. After our brief chat, I realized that I wasn’t the only person in Denver who would enjoy spending some time with Ted. Wanting to share the love, I conceived of putting on a meetup where people in the Denver area indigenous to the social media space would be able to join Ted and myself for a couple hours. Ted said that as long as he got to see me, he didn’t care what I concocted. My idea for a meetup immediately turned into a full-blown social media event, and thus was born Social Media Shenanigans with Joel Comm and Ted Rubin. You see, most social media meetups are your basic networking events. People get together in a business-like atmosphere and discuss what they do. Connections are made. Food is consumed. And people go on their way. I wanted to do that, but I wanted to do something different and kick it up a notch. So I contacted my friends at SmarterChaos.com, a full service performance marketing agency in Castle Rock, Colorado, and asked if they would like to sponsor a meetup party where I would invite 150 people to network, eat food, drink whatever it is they like to drink, and rock out like social media superstars. They agreed to do so. I brought in Sabrina Risley of CERTUS Professional Network, Tara Jacobson, Dave Galegor and Ashley Coombe of Prosperent as additional sponsors and helpers. With only two weeks to put this together, I knew I had to move quickly and effectively. I also wanted to aim high. This wasn’t going to be a small meetup with just a few dozen people. No, I had my sites set on up to 175 people. So I located a venue in downtown Denver that would hold everyone. I ended up at The Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery on the 16th Street Mall. And then I began inviting people. Fast-forward to the night of the event. It was scheduled to begin at 7 pm. I checked my watch at 6:55 pm and there were already approximately 40 people in the room. I looked out the door and there was a line. At the moment I knew that the evening was going to be awesome! And it was… So many wonderful people showed up, including a number of friends such as Kevin Knebl, Brian G. Johnson, Debra Jason, Greg Hickman, Amber Ludwig-Vilhauer, Chasen Chess and too many others to name here. I also met so many other people for the first time. It was so fun walking around and greeting my guests. Ted Rubin totally delivered during his 20-minute presentation. People ate this guy up, and why wouldn’t they? He’s all about return on relationship (#RonR) There were plenty of prizes, tons of networking, a super-fun photo booth from JustShutterUp.com and I think the evening lived up to its promise of “shenanigans”. We used a Hashtag for the event and there are a bunch of pictures out there. Take a look at #SMSDenver on Twitter and posts and photos on Facebook. The feedback post event was tremendous. So much so that I am going to do it again. Soon. The official meetup group is here. So join up if you want to be notified first!
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