A week ago today, we held the 3rd Annual Huntington Beach Tweetup at Slater’s 50/50 in Huntington Beach, CA. Yes, a tweetup — that is a meetup for people who’d met on Twitter. Back in the old days, ok, three years ago, when social media was just a novelty and Twitter was all the buzz, Priscilla Willis of She’s Cookin and I decided to host such a gathering in our home turf of Huntington Beach. At the time, there were tweetups almost every night usually in Irvine or Costa Mesa. Priscilla and I had just met at a BlogCrush ourselves and were still finding our voice as bloggers.

The first meetup was at 301 Beachfront in Downtown Huntington Beach. It was a good time. That’s where we first met Shannon Smith aka @beautysmith who was then called @fauxlashes and Kim Pham aka @kphamsmiles, and even @robgokee and @alliecine were there from LA. We were all excited and it didn’t matter that the venue was an epic fail because we were seated right by a band and had to yell at each other to be heard. Still, the bonds were made so that the next year… the usual suspects like @beautysmith @bigheadasian @jwalery @ocrealtress @thebigdebowski et al returned to meet at the second meetup.

By now @shescookin had wonderfully blossomed into a respected food blogger and she hooked us up at Zimzala Restaurant at the Shorebreak Hotel. There were about 30 people at that meetup – it was like a reunion and then some. New faces like @coachglitter and @staceysoleil were there too.

And here we are three years later. After meeting the owners and marketing people at Slater’s 50/50 during a special preview, they graciously agreed to host our little tweetup, which to be honest, should now be called “The Reunion.” Slater’s 50/50 provided us with sodas, appetizers and burger samples. We also enjoyed Happy Hour prices on other drinks. The clear winner was: PEANUT BUTTER AND JEALLOUSY – the seemingly unusual but unusually delicious combo of an all-beef patty, bacon and yes, peanut butter!

When you get right down to eat, you can make all the friends you want online, you can connect on multiple social media channels but there’s nothing like meeting someone face-to-face in real life.

“For companies to get the most out of social media they should consider employing a specialist as part of their PR team or if using a PR agency they should ensure at least one suitably qualified person is working on their account. Although championing a business’ social networking channels, and perhaps also writing content, is the responsibility of many in the organisation it is important that an individual or central team takes control of the wider issues, fully coordinates campaigns and is responsible for learning from best practice studies as well as putting the knowledge into use.”

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Businesses should consider employing a social media specialist to coordinate campaigns | Social Media Today.