Here’s what I love the most about social media. It connects you with people whom you really are destined to meet but simply never would. We become intertwined in new and unusual ways and build unique bonds but often never meet. Such is the case with PRtini. Like many of my social media friends, I know her best by her twitter handle. PRtini is Heather Whaling, a PR pro, blogger and host of a twitter show on all things social and PR. I’ve long admired PRtini, er Heather. Who wouldn’t adore someone with the wickedly clever impulse to secure the name PRtini! She writes and blogs eloquently about a subject I’m passionate about, the convergence of social media with public relations.
Nearly a year ago, Heather blogged, quite unprompted, about one of my clients, PGi. (Confession: writing a nice blog post about ANY of my clients immediately puts you on my radar and makes you a fast friend!) Of course, I commented on her blog, tweeted her out multiple times and thus began our twitter friendship.
Little did I know that I’d someday find myself on an American Airlines flight headed to Haiti with a woman who’s twitter profile is named after one of my favorite cocktails. (Truth any one of the “tinis” are my favorite drink!) Such is the case of social connectivity.
Was it one of Heather’s tweets or mine that led us to actually pick up the phone? An old-fashioned conference call was scheduled sometime around the holiday season and my team got on the phone with Heather to explore synchronicities and ways we might work together. We do a tremendous amount of blogger relations and blogger outreach at Everywhere so we explored that as a possibility. We talked about her twitter show and then somehow we began to talk about Heart of Haiti and the social media outreach we do for Macy’s. I might have non-chalantly said, ‘You should come to Haiti with us.” I do remember friending her on Facebook during the call and realizing, “Wait, you are friends with Sarah Evans?” Well, a lot of folks are friends with Sarah Evans but Heather is really really a friend. So much so that she drove all the way from Columbus, Ohio to Chicago to attend Sarah’s 30th birthday party. (An event I missed but was well represented by my business partner, Tamara Knechtel). With Sarah as a mutual friend, the bond was forged. Right there on that phone call. Suddenly, my blithe suggestion that she come to Haiti with us was taken up by Heather and next thing I know, she’s on the same flight to Port au Prince with me. Now if only they had that favorite cocktail on this flight!