I have interacted with so many interesting and engaging people since opening my Twitter account.

I typically don’t follow everyone who follows me. If you take a look at my “Following” list, you’ll notice that it’s inundated with social media people, Boulder people, and Boulder/Denver restaurants. A girl’s gotta eat!

If you follow me, I’ll take a quick look at your profile & recent tweets, and if I don’t attach too much value to what you’re bringing to the table, I won’t follow you back.

It sounds a little harsh, and I generally end up losing followers who place A LOT of value in the quantity of their own followers, but I like people who bring substance and can teach me a thing or two.

If you don’t provide that, I’ll un-follow you (or just not follow you back). It’s much more about quality than quantity for this tweep.

Once every month or two I find myself going through the list of people I follow-and whether you’re a social media tweep or not-if you’re not tweeting at all, I’ll un-follow you.

I like the ratio between the people I follow and those who follow me to be fairly small. I guess you can say that Twitter is both a science and an art.

My main motivation for writing this post was not to discuss my Twitter practices, but rather to expose how effective Twitter can be. If you optimize it, Twitter is THE vessel to connect you to people you may have otherwise never “met”.

Here’s an example. In the last week I decided to have a going away party for Saxy’s Cafe-a local Boulder favorite that is going out of business. I tweeted about it to a couple of Boulder cake and froyo places to see if they’d want to donate some treats for the event.

I actually ended up getting a great response. But one of the frozen yogurt places (Smooch) gave me the idea to have a drawing and they’d donate a gift card. I thought, a drawing for what? Who would the money benefit? And then I made a solid connection.

You see, I recently added myself as a “remote” member/helper to the The Wellness Initiative committee list. One of the noble things they do is raise money to bring yoga into schools.

This is near & dear to my heart because not only do I think yoga is one of the most beneficial practices you can participate in, but also because I used to be a teacher and know how much the kids I taught would have benefitted from The Initiative.

You can read more about them on their site and see how they’ve made strides in recent years.

Anyway, I figured that I could email all of the Boulder businesses that I’ve ever known, and tweet about the event to those I have never met. You could call it a social experiment of sorts, just to see how many people would respond to a tweet.

I tweeted that Saxy’s last day is Wed., Feb 29th, and that they wanted to honor the Boulder community by giving to The Wellness Initiative.

I asked locals if they’d want to donate swag, services, or anything else their biz was able to provide. We would hold a drawing on Saxy’s last day and all proceeds would benefit The Wellness Initiative.

The results have been pretty astounding so far. The event hasn’t occurred, but within a 48 hour period, Businesses have donated over $400 in gift cards and goods. 48 hours.

That’s significant in my book. And if it stops there, I would still consider that a success.

Pretty sweet, aye? Now do you see why I rave about Twitter all the time? I’m a believer, and I think you should be too.

Have you had any experiences with Twitter that made your event a game changer?

(A final list of the businesses who were able to donate will be added after the event is over, just so we can truly honor them in this space.)