Poynter’s Dave Stanton and Ellyn Angelotti lean in close to a laptop video camera to chat with participants during Poynter’s first Tweetup, Wednesday, November 3. Kenny Irby / The Poynter Institute

More than 70 people participated during the Tweetup including those gathered at Poynter and virtual tweetups in South Florida and Washington, D.C. Kenny Irby / The Poynter Institute

A participant at Poynter documents the event. Kenny Irby / The Poynter Institute

David Stanton and Ellyn Angelotti talk over technical aspects of the Tweetup. Kenny Irby / The Poynter Institute

Poynter’s kicked off its 35th Anniversary celebration on Nov. 3 with its first-ever tweetup. More than 70 people met up IRL (in real life) with notable twitter users from the Tampa Bay region, including Amber Osborne (a.k.a. @missdestructo), Creative Loafing Tampa’s Best of The Bay: Best Twitter Personality.

So many people tweeted during the evening with the #p35 hashtag that it was trending locally on Twitter. Throughout the evening, the tweetup connected with related virtual tweetups in Washington D.C. and South Florida. Online participants followed along via a video stream on Poynter’s website and interacted with those in attendance on Twitter.

Tweets from the Event

What participants said about the tweetup:

Amber Osbourne (@missdestructo): Tweetup at #p35 was wonderful, tons of major news sources there and what a beautiful campus @Poynter has!

Antony Francis: (@Antony511): excited for social media day at the Poynter Institute after seeing all the cool people at the tweetup tonight #P35

Anthony Miller (@amillernews): Had a great time at the Poynter tweet-up tonight. Met a lot of great people, hope they do it again. #p35

Michael Bishop (@miklb): Thanks to @poynter for hosting the #p35 tweetup tonight. Lots of cool people, really enjoyed talking with @stpetetimes about their website

Indy McDaniel @Steelcorpsfilms: I have survived #p35 #tweetup. I say, bring on another! Was fun seeing the people behind the avatar. Poynter is a pretty pimp place, too. Definitely won’t be my last trip there.

David Irwin (@ComoDiBassetto): Enjoyed meeting interesting people at the Poynter Tweetup.

Barry Friedman (@BIF): Hobnobbing with the social media goober smoochers and celebrating Poynter’s 35th anniversary. #p35 #mmi (@ The Poynter Institute)

Andy Boyle (@andymboyle): Totally rocking out at #p35. Omg hai everyone.