Those who have heard about the Purley 2.0 project will appreciate that I have been talking about the uses of Twitter for some time now in building community and getting to know other people in Purley.
In light of Croydon’s recent sunny spell (ha!) this week, I just want to briefly catalogue the various ways I saw Twitter being used as a means to encourage more Purley residents to start using it (or to keep on using it!).
- Caring for and helping other locals
- Providing local information
Like the whereabouts of local road blockages and accidents:
As well as answering public transport queries:
Getting quick travel information from official sources:
- Contact local newspapers (follow @JoannaCroydonAd if you have a story)
- Hold community meetings using #hashtags to follow the conversation
Local Croydon BNI business group members were snowed in and had to cancel their Wednesday AM meeting in Shirley. Instead, Twitter user @maudalleyne suggested taking their meeting to Twitter. The twenty or so members all met between 6.30 – 8.30 on Twitter and had a discussion as normal by tweeting and adding #BNIcroydon to their tweets so everyone could follow the discussion. It looked like this:
- Make contact with other locals
The snow also made for a great chance for Purley tweeters to reach out and say hello to each other. We were all in the same [snowed-in] boat and there was no reason to go it alone!
These were just some of the cool ways I saw people coming together over Twitter to help others in Purley. It would be fantastic to keep this going. Say hello to other each other. Add helpful information to the #purley hashtag. Follow and tweet out useful #purley news.
There are just a few ideas. Get back to me in the comments box below or on Twitter if you have any more ideas about how we can use Twitter to benefit Purley 
Check out THE PURLEY 2.0 PROJECT.
Big shout-out to the following Purley heads for using Twitter to help the community:
@neilspellings, @james_brooks, @markcooperxyz, @stephenhendry, @judecore, @sarahmonkeys, @olivia318, @sarahniks, @maudealleyne and @honoraryspock
Nuff Purley love x
