Having just “finished” planning a blogger meetup in Chicago that those of you not attending are probably a little sick of hearing about, I thought I’d shed some insight on what that process was like, and how it might be done better. I think that 20 Something Bloggers is very unique in the way that it fosters quite a lot of offline blogger interactions.
20SBers want to hang out together! When it’s just a handful of bloggers who live in the same general area, planning a meetup is a pretty simple task. When, Where, Who, and How Will We Know Each Other? When you all know the area, this is easy as pie. Becoming Facebook Friends a week in advance even saves on the identification issues.
Bigger meetups can be more challenging. These aren’t your everyday friends…you don’t know exactly where people are coming from, how they’re traveling, or how well they know the areas you know. You don’t know their budgets. One or two might actually hate sushi (gasp!).
In these cases, I definitely have some advice. Lots of advice, in fact, so I’ll stick to just the basics for this post.
- The Coalition: It’s best to form a coalition of locals who want to do something fun together, before contemplating a truly epic blogger meetup that invites people in from out of town. Every meetup needs a group of instigators who will handle the details. People who know the area and can help everyone else get to where they need to be. For some, attending a blogger meetup is fretful enough…you’re meeting people from the internet, after all. Driving around in circles looking for a restaurant only adds to the discomfort.
- Give It Time: The more lead time you give a blogger meetup that involves, say, more than 10 people, the more successful it’ll be. Every meetup inevitably has last minute adjustments, but especially if you want to entice out-of-towners to make it, give them some time to make travel plans.
- Don’t Go Remote: Pick a spot that’s got other options. If you decide to meet up for dinner, pick a place with some back ups nearby, in case the group gets too big on you or the place just doesn’t work. It happens…trust me. In addition, when dinner is done, you’ll have a few places nearby to grab drinks or dessert…conversations sometimes need a jump start and moving locations is a great ignitor.
- Use Tools: Even the smallest get-together benefits from using online tools. On our network, we’ve launched the Events tool to aid with local and larger meetups and tweetups. Facebook is a great event planner. A tool like Twtvite works great for basic tweetup planning. The days of mass email planning are long gone, friends. Use these tools because they make life easier for you and your attendees. You need to have an “official” source of information.
- Talk About It: It might seem obvious, but make sure you’re mentioning your gathering as the event gets closer. Things fall out of my head pretty easily…if I hear about your meetup a couple times over a month, one of those times I will probably be in front of my calendar.
- Blog Stalk, Or Don’t: Some people believe that to meet a blogger, you need to have their life history down. I haven’t found that to be the case…sure a little background on who someone is can’t hurt, but a room full of bloggers is usually filled with “So who are you?”s and nerd talk about twitter, blogger platforms, and anonymoty. As a blogger, you’re already far more prepped for meetup chatter than you think you are.
There you have it…the basics to a meetup. The main ingrediant is fun bloggers, which fortunately tend to be the same bloggers that like to go to meetups. Blogger meetups are sort of a ready-made funbomb in that way.
Stay tuned, because when our Chicago meetup is over, I’ll probably expand on this to include advice for multi-day meetups with hotels and sponsorships. That’s an entirely different ballpark!
Leave your own meetup and tweetup tips and ideas in the comments!
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