Having followed and re-tweeted people in the Cambridge area for years it happened more than once that I entered a networking event and I met in person somebody that already knew me via Twitter or I knew them or both.

Earlier this week I met in person Robert Craven a famous author, speaker and marketing strategist, founder of the Directors Centre; as I walked into a conference he was seated having lunch with some people and, seeing me he recognized me, stood up and shook my hand to meet me in person.  Having interacted over Twitter and having commented each other’s blogs for a couple of years we actually never met in person and it was a great coincidence being at the same event and a great opportunity for me to meet a person that I like very much for the work he does and the books he writes.

Last night, out for drinks with friends, I was in a newly opened pub ordering a round when the bar tender after taking the order asked me: “is your name Max?”.  I initially replied that my name is Massimo that is the Italian equivalent but it came natural to ask how he knew it.  He answered that he has been following me and re-tweeting some of my messages when working for another local bar, for which he was managing their Twitter account.

I can be difficult to measure the effectiveness of Twitter given the very high noise to signal ratio; however it works well to develop a personal brand and interact with people that would not be reachable in any other way and more and more of these stories are there to testify it.