Your own backyard can be surprisingly fertile ground for nearly anything. The tricky part is finding enough local people who know something about, or are interested in, whatever interests you. If your goal is to follow a beat, develop sources, expand your skills, have fun, get out more, increase community engagement, or enrich your personal or professional network, you might want to try Meetup.com.
The site’s tagline says it all: “Maybe it’s time for a little less face-to-screen and a little more face-to-face.” Meetup.com has been around for a few years and has developed an impressively large and diverse user base — currently 46,315 local meetup groups in 3,601 cities worldwide, holding about 102,000 meetings per month on 4,916 topics. Meetup.com claims 4.7 million users, and each month handles about 1.7 million event RSVPs.
I’ve been an active Meetup.com user for about three years. I belong to about 15 local meetup groups, I run the Front Range Bloggers meetup group, which has over 200 members. I’ve found Meetup.com to be a rich resource for making all sorts of connections. However, I’ve been surprised at how few journalists and news organizations use Meetup.com — either to find and attend existing local groups, or to start their own.
The site offers simple but powerful tools to support self-organizing local groups: calendars, message boards, e-mail alerts, profiles, and more. If you’re doing something that would benefit from local meetings, using Meetup.com is probably much simpler and more effective than setting up your own infrastructure (even a Ning group). One advantage of organizing via Meetup.com is that so many people already know to look there for local events.
How it works:Register on Meetup.com (free). I recommend posting a photo and also filling out your profile to give folks a sense of who you are. Then search for meetup groups within a given radius of your zip code. For instance, there are 445 Meetup.com groups within 25 miles of my home in Boulder, Colo.
When you find a group that interests you, click the “join us” button” on the group’s page. Then fill out a profile for the group if requested, to indicate why you’re interested and what you have to offer. I recommend also signing up to get e-mail alerts of upcoming meetups, RSVPing for an upcoming meeting, and subscribing to the group’s calendar (available in iCal, Outlook, and other common calendar formats)
Then, go to a meetup event! This is the really fun part. You never know quite what to expect. It could be just five people at a coffee shop, or 10 people going for a walk together, or dozens of people taking over a local bar, or a hundred or more at a more formal event with speakers and agendas. If the meetup group has very few members listed, you might want to e-mail the group’s organizer beforehand to check whether the group is still active.
Tips for attending meetups:
- Speak up and be friendly. Explain why you wanted to attend the meetup, even if it’s just “I really don’t know anything about Taoist knitting / local education reform / Afghan hounds but I thought it sounded like fun.” Ask people why they’re involved with the group, to get conversations rolling.
- Introduce yourself to the meetup organizer. I’ve attended many, many meetup groups, and all of them have been welcoming to newcomers. The fastest way to get introduced to many members is to let the group organizer know you’re new. He or she will probably happily make connections for you on the spot.
- Go with the flow. Every meetup group has its own history and culture. Some are high-energy, others are mellow. Some have no structure, others have lots. Some are mostly frequented by folks with high-level expertise or interest, others may draw more people with casual interest.
- Give a meetup at least three chances. A group’s meetups can vary considerably from one month to the next — more, fewer, or different people; different venues; etc. If you try a group and it’s not quite to your liking, give it another chance or two. It may grow on you. Also, if the group is about a sensitive topic (say, local race relations) it may take a meeting or two for members to relax around you.
- If you’re a journalist, say so. Clarify whether you’re there to cover the group, to just learn, or actively participate. (If you want to cover the meeting, contact the group’s organizer beforehand to ask if that would be appropriate. Many groups welcome coverage of their meetings; others don’t.)
…If you like the meetup experience and want to start your own group, then you’ll have to upgrade to paid Meetup Organizer subscription. The cheapest annual plan costs $144. (Often meetup organizers get group member to chip in on the cost once the group gets some momentum.)
However, once you have an organizer account you can start as many meetup groups as you like. This is why your news organization should get a Meetup.com account — so employees can set up groups on behalf of the organization, ad hoc.
So your a paper is starting an in-depth investigation into local impacts of the economic crisis, it could use Meetup.com both to connect with various local sub-communities and interest groups (joining existing meetups) and engage the community in discussion and crowdsourcing (starting its own meetup groups — for homeowners, businesses, students, etc.).
Or if you’re trying to learn more about or expand your personal connections in new-media areas such as social media, video, or web or mobile development, joining meetup groups on those topics can help you find talent, mentors, or work — or think more creatively about your career.
Finally, if you travel, it’s fun to check which meetups are happening in your destination city during your trip.
Do you or your news org use Meetup.com? What’s been your experience? Please comment below.
