On Twitter yesterday I mused about how my Twitter friends and I could do some sort of Secret Santa kind of event. I’ve participated in these at a lot of work places, and at my one job in NYC, we had it down to a science.
So now the question is: in a social media world, how do we pull this off? I like this idea because gift-giving is an exercise in community. In order to “buy” the perfect gift for someone, you need to get to know them. It is this sort of relationship that is the building block of community.
First off, while Twitter is a community in and of itself, it is made up of numerous co-existing and entwined communities. We are all members of numerous communities. Here in Lancaster, and even beyond to Central PA, we have a very strong geographical community that is mirrored on Twitter. The York, Lancaster, and Harrisburg Twitter folks all have local tweet-ups, and there is some overlap. It’s a very natural and organic thing.
So for a Secret Santa to work, all of those involved probably have to be part of the same community. So there may need to be some limitations, because in order to “purchase” a gift for someone else, you really should know them.
Here is my proposal and I would love to see a variety of online communities try this. Give this a look (this is me thinking out loud) and comment below. I’d love to hear any flaws in this plan, as well as hear your improvements.
- Those who want to participate sign up by a certain date.
- Somehow, magically, the names are distributed. I just found SecretSanta.com but I’ll have to investigate how well it works first.
- Once everyone knows their counterpart, they create a fictional Twitter account they can use to send nice messages to their recipient. All of these fictional names can be put together in a special Twitter list so everyone in the group can follow everyone else and see what’s going on.
- Then, here is where it gets tricky. On a set date, each person tweets a link to the item they have “hand chosen” for their recipient. And try to make it the perfect gift. It can be as big or as little as you like, since it won’t cost you anything.
- An added element would be to have everyone try to guess the identity of their Secret Santa.
- And for a twist, you could have the “unveil” at a tweet-up, but it’s usually hard to get everyone together for this. But we could have an optional tweet-up at the finale for a cookie exchange, as one of my friends suggested.
- There is always the option to include real gifts, rather than virtual gifts, but if we did that, I would suggest that there be a very low price limit, and require that everything be “local”. Handmade would work as well.
So what are your thoughts? Seems like a great community builder. Changes? Let me know and maybe we can implement this here in Lancaster/Central PA.
I eagerly await your comments and suggestions. Let’s do it!
