Do you run training events, short courses, open days or networking events? You could reach a wider audience and raise your business profile by putting them on MeetUp.
What is MeetUp?
MeetUp is a social website that enables online connections to be made for in-person events, meetings or social gatherings. It originated in the United States as a new platform for organisers and for people to find groups and meet people with common interests, hobbies or careers.
How does MeetUp work?
You need to sign up to MeetUp and choose your package. Then you can create your MeetUp – make sure you add a relevant description and start adding your events. People join your MeetUp and can then RSVP to individual events, message you directly and also leave feedback. We now have over 50 members in our MeetUp group, with an average of 4 attendees coming directly from MeetUp each help session.
How MeetUp has helped us raise our business profile
We’ve been running our #ShakeItHUB free business help sessions for over a year now and what started as a tentative pilot has turned into popular monthly events. Of course we also offer help and advice to anyone that contacts us, but we wanted to offer something a step beyond that. Our hub is something that serves our business community and helps people that are not sure who to call or where to start. These sessions are drop-in, free, and open to all. During the hub events we help people with their websites providing fixes or giving suggestions about design, search engine optimisation or functionality. We also help with all things marketing and PR related such as brainstorming ideas, giving feedback on campaigns, suggesting things to try or to investigate for their business. We’ve had great fun meeting and helping businesses of all types and at all stages – we’ve even helped a few people who haven’t started up yet, but wanted some honest advice about their business ideas. So, how has putting our help hubs on MeetUp helped?
- It’s enabled us to reach a whole other audience
- MeetUp is proactive and sends emails and notifications to users so our free business help sessions are advertised for us
- We’ve received positive feedback directly on MeetUp which shows potential visitors that it’s a great event
- MeetUp makes it easy for people to find our latest events
- Helps spread the word about what we’re doing to help businesses and therefore raises our profile
- Although our sessions are drop-in, when people RSVP through MeetUp, it helps us be prepared and it’s great for others to see that people are attending
Use it in conjunction with other social platforms
Of course we use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube as well to showcase our help hubs but Meet Up goes a step further with helping us to build our business community and offers direct engagement. It’s also social and a form of networking for our members too both online and offline. That is when MeetUp really comes in to its own. Helping people and connecting people is what we do through our free business help sessions, which raises our own business profile and helps build an excellent reputation.
With all social platforms, a certain amount of work and time should be dedicated to your MeetUp. Make sure you upload some photos unique to your business so it ties in with your business identity. You’ll need to greet new members, reply to questions, update your events and manage your account. MeetUp emails continually go into our spam box despite following steps to ensure we receive them so if you’re not getting your MeetUp emails, then be sure to check your spam folder or download the MeetUp app to your phone so you get notifications through. As with many things in business, the more effort you put in, the more you’ll reap the benefits.
www.meetup.com
