Posted on September 14, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

We’re having a Deep Fried Tweetup at the @NCStateFair

Buzz it

Triangle Twitter users will not be confined to 140-character conversations as they experience the Fair’s offerings at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the N.C. State Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22.

The event, co-hosted by the organizers of Triangle Tweetup, will be held in the Folk Festival Tent from 7 to 9 p.m. on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day.

“We’ve built great relationships over the past year with our social media followers, and we wanted to organize an event that would help them enjoy the Fair in a new social way,” said Wesley Wyatt, fair manager.

During the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, attendees will be able to sample deep-fried Fair food, interact with Fair entertainers, participate in a Twitter-themed scavenger hunt and enter to win prizes throughout the night. The event is part of a growing trend of events where participants have face-to-face gatherings with people they follow on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also one of the first Tweetups hosted by a state fair.

The co-host, OurHashtag, has held 10 Triangle Tweetups during the past two years. The company’s partners Wayne Sutton, Jeff Cohen, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar are active members in the local social media community, and have planned several social media events including Ignite Raleigh and monthly Triangle Social Media Club meetings. Past Triangle Tweetups have included a charitable component to the main event.

“By holding the Tweetup on Hunger Relief Day, we are able to gather at the Fair without charging a registration fee, and can continue to help our community through charitable contributions,” Sutton said. Anyone who brings four cans of food to the Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22 will get in to the Fair for free.

The N.C. State Fair was the first fair to use Twitter, and currently connects with fairgoers on a variety of social media sites, including:

• Deep Fried @ the N.C. State Fair Blog: www.ncstatefair.org/blog
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncstatefair
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncstatefair
• MySpace: www.myspace.com/ncstatefair

The Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup is one of several new activities added this year to appeal to the state’s tech-savvy community. Other events include the TXT-O-LYMPIX texting competition and nightly video game contests.

Promotional video

More information about the Fair can be found at www.ncstatefair.org. Space is limited to the first 500 registrants.

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Author: Wayne Sutton

Wayne Sutton, Business Development/Marketing Strategist for TriOut. You can follow Wayne on Twitter, or on Facebook. Wayne can be reached via email at wayne@trioutnc.com