Sunday, September 19, 2010

Networking Is Magical

Last night was magical for me. I was able to bring a handful of people together from different areas of my life through social media and wonderful things happened.

It all started when I found out a friend of mine, Clif Miller, whom I met through networking was providing live entertainment at Yogurt Wave in Santa Ana. I invited my husband and mutual friends of ours to come and see him through texting and Facebook. A former work associate-turned-friend, Jon, met us there as well. Upon hearing Clif play, the mutual friends decided to hire him to play at their wedding reception.

This, of course, was not anticipated. But if they hadn't come and met Clif, this arrangement would never have happened! In addition, my friends and husband were both exposed to the best yogurt in Orange County, CA. They were all impressed with the yogurt, were able to shake hands with the owner and hear the story behind his business. I helped out two people with their businesses as well as the local economy! Everyone was happy!

But it didn't end there.

After the yogurt shop, we went to Karl Strauss for dinner. Both Jon and I use Foursquare and check-in when we want to share where we are with our friends. We both did this when we arrived at the restaurant. An old friend of ours, Albert, who happens to be on Foursquare, was in the area and decided to surprise us by coming to the restaurant. We had just been talking about how Albert recently landed a big photo shoot and moments later, there he was standing by our booth! We were all overjoyed!

Some people don't understand the act of unveiling your personal life on social media sites. I see the potential of social media sites bringing people closer together. Last night proved my theory.

I have a vast network of people I can call upon for just about anything one might need. It is my personal mission to connect people to help one another. The relationships of many of those people in my network were developed at networking group meetings. I am fortunate to be able to attend these meetings and meet fellow business owners. If you are in the Orange County, CA area and would like to visit some great meetings, here are a couple of sites you should check out:

True2Life Networking Group
TEAM Referral Network

Start creating some magic of your own and tell 'em Wicked Marketing sent ya!