Charter Rocked Our Tweetup

Or how to win friends and influence people from Twitter.

Charter is the cable provider in the St. Louis metro area. Competition exists in the form of dish providers and U-Verse, AT&T’s offering.  Charter is also the default install for new homes and apartments. All in all, they dominate the television provider market.

I say all that to put in context Charter’s social networking endeavor. They simply didn’t need it as a way to one-up the competition.

Dedicated listeners form a small team keeping tabs on Twitter mentions about Charter.  Shown about are three gents from the team. This photo was snapped at a local tweetup (Twitter social networking meetup). These men are not in another country; they are in the same metro area as the company.

Meeting people in person isn’t the team’s job but today Charter authorized them to come out and hang at our tweetup.  The team lead asked before hand if they needed to bring or do anything special. Told them nope; just show up and come hungry. So they did.

Normal guys joined us for lunch. They didn’t come wearing Charter shirts and logos. They didn’t come to push their products. The guys just showed up, ate, and joined the conversation.

Conversation about them and the job of being the Twitter face of Charter came up. Each of the guys happily fielded our queries as well as sharing good and bad stories. Two years under their belts and you can imagine the tales.

G and I had chatted before with his Charter account and it was good to finally meet. He’s one I’d personally sent over folks having cable difficulties. Talking a good talk online is one thing; he is even more jovial and outgoing in person.

E, team manager, mentioned they are pushing to hold a Charter sponsored tweetup. I told him go simple and he already agreed, deciding to pass on any presentation. Like me, he’s a fan of breaking bread over speachifying.

Bringing faceless Twitter people together is what Tweetups are all about. The Bring A Tweep To Lunch series, #BATTL, is focused around bringing St. Louis metro tweeps together. Charter team members joining us presented an opportunity for them and the rest of us attending to break down some barriers, make some friends, and even square up a few things.

(Not minutes after we broke up, one of the Charter team messaged me to fix an accounting issue on my bill. No paperwork. No phone call. Just real service.)

Networking events often become about pushing yourself on others. Today was more about stories, listening, and breaking bread. The pace was slow. No burden on anyone to present, share, take a business card or do anything but eat and enjoy the company.

Charter team rocked it most by just being part of that.

I’d love to hear your best tweetup stories, surprise guests, and best tips. Be sure to leave a comment or find me on Twitter, @tojosan.

bonus – pics from the #BATTL via @versadave.

bonus - #BATTL TweetUp at LLYWELYN’s Pub – St. Charles, Mo. via @nanna_j

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Charter folks that joined us: @Umatter2Charter @Umatter2Chtr2 @Umatter2ChtrG

Please make sure to give them a shout out.

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