“You can’t go too far in this town without running into a Twitter-lebrity,” Kate Buck, a social media and marketing consultant, said. “I think South By Southwest has a lot to do with that. We’re a very vibrant community and a very cultural community as well.”

“When I first got on Twitter, I followed everybody because I just wanted to learn as much as I could,” she said. “The key to it is to be yourself, be interesting, be interested.”

But more important than her Twitter count, Buck said, are the relationships she has with people.

“Content is king, but what is queen – or equally important – is the networking, introducing yourself, having that one-on-one personal connection,” she said. “We can’t all be digital all the time.”

And there is no better time to meet the people you interact with on Twitter than SXSW.

Buck does not have a badge to get into all the panels, but as social media guru Chris Brogan recently said, “There’s a lot more done in the hallways than [on] the stage.”

There are also free networking events happening all over the city throughout the next ten days. Thursday night, for example, there is a happy hour tweet up (Twitter + Meep up = Tweet up). Click here for more free events.

“Austin is a town where there is an event, a tweet up, a meet up, a social event almost every night of the week within the tech community," Buck said. "That is where the real interaction happens; that is where you get to know people and create lasting business relationships.”