Miami Mayor Francis Suarez using Twitter to build next Silicon Valley

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was leaving lunch at tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s house and on his way back to City Hall when he got a text from an unknown number.

The person was polite, wanting to catch up and congratulating him on a job well done, so Suarez asked whom he was speaking with, to which he got back “David B.” Not really clearing anything up, Suarez responded “last name?”

It was David Beckham.

Suarez’s schedule and phone have blown up since he accidentally launched a Twitter campaign to make Miami the latest innovation hub in early December, when someone on the app suggested bringing Silicon Valley to the Sunshine State. His “How can I help?” response generated 2.3 million organic impressions alone, he says.

“It gave me the impetus and energy and incentive to keep tweeting and connecting at a very high rate,” Suarez said. In the month of December he had 27 million impressions on his account, and he’s seen a strong payoff from people coming over from the Bay Area and the East coast.

Suarez has been working on fomenting a tech boom in Miami for more than a decade, reasoning that it could bring higher-paying jobs for Miami residents, while also positioning the city at the forefront of innovation and the tech industry for years to come.

Usually, tech employees and investors would stick to San Francisco or New York City, since they’re major office hubs. But the coronavirus pandemic opened up remote work as a possibility for scores of people. Many left their respective cities in search of cheaper rent, more space and a possibility to slash taxes for a bit.

Now, venture capital influencers and Silicon Valley elite, like Keith Rabois who had just left the Bay Area, have hopped on Twitter to put the spotlight on their new home.

After Rabois announced his relocation to Miami, Suarez tweeted at him to congratulate him on the move and the two connected for the first time.

“People are just happy here. At the end of the day, you meet people and they’re smiling. In San Francisco that’s just not true,” Rabois said in an interview Wednesday.

“I’ve had more meetings in two weeks in Miami than the entire past 10 months. Founders, CEO’s, investors, email intros from mutuals, new connections. Everyone’s down here,” Benjamin Kosinski, an investor, said on Twitter this week.

“His recruiting pitch worked on me—MIA bound in the Spring,” another person said of Suarez on Twitter. “Will be books written about what @FrancisSuarez and @rabois are doing to build Miami into the tech city of the roaring 20’s. Switch has been flipped and it happened almost overnight.”Suarez told CNBC that he often hears the theme from founders who are sick of tax policies, high costs of living, and a feeling that they’re not welcome in their cities.

“I think the ‘How can I help?’ tweet was…