I've discovered that one of the unexpected benefits of blogging is that it gets me out and about - out of my car and out of my house. Truth be told, I tend to be a bit of a workaholic and at the end of a long day I'm usually happiest at home - working on my blog of course!
But blogging means you've got to get involved - visit that neighborhood to take photos, check out that local attraction you want to write about, or eat at that new restaurant so you can write a review.
I've been getting coaching about blogging from the Real Estate Tomato's Ricardo Bueno. Ricardo's an expert on social networking. In one of our first sessions Ricardo urged us to get out to Meetups, Tweetups, etc.
Inwardly (and probably outwardly too - I'm not shy!) I groaned - puhleeease - I can barely keep it together between real estate, blogging about real estate, and keeping myself dressed and fed. Who has time - or energy - to go out and mingle? Not me I thought.
Well I'm happy to report that I went to my first Meetup last night - and I loved it. I stumbled upon it while searching online one night. It's a Meetup group about WordPress blogs and the event was held at Microsoft in Cambridge. Wow - what a location - wrap-around views of the Charles River and a fridge fully stocked with free soda - complimentary Diet Coke - that's my idea of a great place to work!
The night featured a talk about Wordpress SEO and marketing by Kevin Leary, a web designer and developer. It was an excellent presentation - some stuff that was over my head, some stuff I already knew, and plenty that I didn't. I've still got to go over my notes.
One thing that tickles my funny bone that I've encountered at the last three tech oriented meetings I've been to - presenters who look like they could be in high school. Excellent presenters all believe me - and they're not actually high school age - at least I don't think so - but they're often the youngest person in the room - and it's their show. How cool is that? And all I can think is - yowza! what must high school be like nowadays when there are all these amazing opportunities for techie kids?
Anyways - I'm really glad I went. And it crossed my mind more than once that blogging brought me there - just like it's brought me to a lot of places recently that I would never have taken the time to check out otherwise. I've joined a couple of other groups and will be off to another meeting in a couple of weeks.
Check out Meetup groups near you - you never know what you'll find, where you'll go or who you'll meet.
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