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Our Lessons LearnedBerlin Meetup Organizer´s Workshop // May 2015
Contact:Founder: Berlin Peace Innovation Lab Anne Riechert [email protected]
• First, consider your target audience; who you would like to join your group or event? Then make sure to design your communication (tone of voice, keywords etc.) to fit that specific audience.
• Make sure to invest in nurturing a good community culture. The longevity and success of a group depends on its ability to define itself as a community (ex. soccer enthusiasts), and not as a list of activities (playing soccer every week).
• Name your group in a way that attracts the audience you hope will sign up. Use key words and even humour, if appropriate.
• Make sure that the “topic tags” of your group are correct, when you create the group. It needs to match the “interests” of your target audience, for them to easily find you.
• Event titles are vital. “Don´t call it “Meetup #4”. It is boring and people won´t know what will happen. Instead, try to capture the spirit of the activity you will do together. Use key words to capture the attention of your target group. Make the event title memorable and persuasive.
• Have a set topic or purpose for your event. People need something to meet around.
Lessons learned
Lessons learned
• Write an attractive invitation, which sets the expectations in advance and lets people know the agenda beforehand: What will we do when -‐ and for how long?
• Attendance: Expect around 50% of RSVPs to show up.
• Make sure to put up location signs in advance, so people can find your meetup.
• Taking attendance is a good way to keep people accountable. Use the Meetup mobile app or print the attendee list and people sign in by themselves.
• Use name tags, it makes networking smoother. Masking tape is a cheap and easy way to do it. Or print out badges via Meetup.
• Have snacks. It costs so little and means so much! M&Ms and pretzels are great.
• Create an event program which encourages interaction and has a good flow of activities. People want to socialise and learn together, not just get lectured to.
• Use icebreakers in the beginning to set the tone and make people feel welcome.
Lessons learned
• Be mindful of people´s time: start on time, stick to the program & finish on time. Go for drinks or food after the event. It is fun, helps people network and strengthens your community
• To grow your community, encourage your core group to bring their friends next time.
• Involve your group to find speakers, locations, topics etc.
• Have empathy with your members! Know who is in your group and what their expectations are. Talk to your audience about what they want -‐ when -‐ where -‐ how often -‐ how long etc. You can use free online surveys or questionnaires e.g. Survey Monkey or Google to ask participants for (anonymous) feedback.
• Connect your Meetup group and events to other social media e.g. Facebook event or Facebook group to drive traffic to your group.
• Create a Twitter handle (@) and hashtag (#) for your group (if appropriate for your audience). It will allow you to connect to connectors who can amplify your message.
• Make sure there is wifi in room if you want people to tweet. Make posters with wifi name and password. And make sure people can read it from afar.
Lessons learned
• Document your Meetup event with pictures. A picture speaks more than 1000 words and lets new members know what to expect. Let people” opt out” (if they don't want to be photographed), instead of “opt in”.
• You can live stream for free via the Bambuser app. It can connect directly to your Facebook group. For better sound quality, use a bluetooth microphone.
• Maintain communication with your group out of event situations. Get them excited in advance of Meetups! Get them chatting in the comment section. Humour is a good community building tool. So joke away!
• Use the Meetup communication tool to avoid “spamming” your community with messages they might not want.
• Build human connections to your community. Create a leadership team to share the community interactions if the group is too big.
• If you organise quality content it is only fair to get paid. Experiment with payment, to find out what is appropriate for your audience. But don’ t make it too “business like” -‐ people want to feel part of a community, not part of your business plan.
• Create a Meetup organizers Meetup group in your city -‐ to get better together!
