Last week I had the honor of attending Twiistup, a premier event in Los Angeles that connects people from technology, media and entertainment. I met a plethora of amazing people from all walks of life who share a passion for staying at the cutting edge of technology.

Attending events and networking in person goes hand in hand with social networking. While we have a myriad of ways to communicate virtually, the power of a handshake still adds a personal touch that can’t be achieved through online communication. Having both is essential for me to build credibility and authenticity to strengthen my relationships.

If you follow me on Twitter you may know I generally follow people I have met in real life (IRL)  or people I will probably meet IRL. I have met about 90% of the people I follow IRL. Those I haven’t met may be business accounts or high profile people.  I choose to follow with this strategy because knowing someone IRL significantly strengthens the value of their tweets for me. I am able to place a face and personality to the short 140 character blurb which really makes a difference in how I process the information that’s presented to me.

I had the pleasure of meeting several of my online friends IRL. Upon the initial handshake, I immediately felt connected and comfortable as we dived right into conversations as if we were catching up from when we last saw each other which in this case was online.  I’d like to give a shout out to a few of my online friends who I met IRL at Twiistup.

Adena DeMonte– @AdenaDeMonte is  from Diddit. Her company was featured as a Showoff at Twiistup. I have used Diddit before and found her through the service so it was great to meet the face behind a social network. I always find it exciting to meet people who work for social networks or big online companies that don’t have a brick and mortar location because it really humanizes the brand and allows me to identify with the service I’m using.

Marvin Tabangay–@Sketch678 is well involved in the Los Angeles tech scene. I always love connecting with other like minded people in different cities. He also happens to be one of the people on Twitter who motivate me to run! There are a few marathoners I follow and it’s always inspirational to read about their training, progress and then race day! I’ve been following him as he was training and fundraising for Rock and Roll Marathon and also know he is a designer so I immediately had a many questions to ask him about how things have been progressing in the tech world and fitness.

Chris Brogan– I told a friend who didn’t know who @ChrisBrogan was about how excited I was for the opportunity to meet him (friend is not as involved in the online space). I described Chris Brogan to my friend as someone who is “famous on Twitter”. He is one of the few people I follow not from California who I hadn’t met in real life nor did I expect to meet soon.  But really, Chris Brogan is more than just someone who has a lot of Twitter followers. He is a true leader in the social media space because he is authentic, caring and truly passionate about his work.  He projected these qualities in person just as his online persona does in the digital space. Meeting him in person really gave me a chance to confirm why people including myself respect him as a leader in social media.

There are many other people I’ve met online then IRL but I wanted to feature a few to give you guys an idea of how I strengthen my relationships by combining social networking with real live meetings.  Please feel free to share a story of how combining online and offline networking has strengthened some of your relationships. I look forward to connecting with more of you in person soon!

For some more Twiistup fun join me on Facebook and check out the photos. Please feel free to tag the photos as I don’t know everyone in all of them.