Tips & Tricks on Organizing a Tech Meetup Group

Work in progress - Created and maintained by Haisam Ido

Social Media

• Twitter

• Create a twitter handle for the group.
• Replace the twitter egg icon immediately, with a relevant icon
• Put the group’s meetup URL on the group’s twitter handle
• Put the group’s twitter handle on the group’s meetup page
• Add the twitter handle of person organizing the group’s twitter handle and visa-versa
• Request sponsorship or co-sponsorship on twitter and via meetup group email
• Request presentations or co-presentations on twitter and via meetup group email
• Announce sponsorships on twitter and via meetup group email
• Announce the scheduling of specific meetups on twitter and email
• Try to always use #dc and #dctech hashtags, or appropriate ones for you region

• LinkedIn

• Consider doing the same on LinkedIn

• Use http://hootsuite.com/ (or an equivelant) to manage the group’s twitter handle and linkedin page.

Meetings

• Ask for help, but be specific with what you need.  If co-organizers don’t help for a ~3 months remove them as co-organizers.
• Schedule meetups weeks in advance.
• Don’t wait to have a sponsor to schedule meetups. It’s easier to cancel but not to create.
• You can have presentations and still seek sponsors.
• Announce meetup via twitter and email and always use appropriate hashtags
• Announce meetup periodically as you get closer to the event.  Don’t over do it though
• Ask, via twitter and email, for a sponsor and presentations for the meetup
• Always thank your sponsors on twitter, using their twitter handle(s), and email, don't forget to include your venue.  
• Always thank the presenters on twitter, using their twitter handle(s), and email
• Arrive early to your event and setup the environment
• Have intro slides playing that show agenda, upcoming events and requests for future sponsorship and presentations
• Ask attendees to tweet using a specific #hashtag
• Encourage attendees to take pictures or videos and post them on twitter and on you group’s meetup.com page
• Sponsors should pay for the venue, food & drinks.
• Have food and drinks delivered.  You won’t have time to do this yourself.
• Sponsors can send money via paypal, checks or direct deposits
• Where possible avoid spending your own money
• Ask for co-sponsors and co-presenters
• Video tape or live stream the meeting using something like this on Live Youtube using Hangouts on Air

• Live streaming uses a lot of bandwidth and participants may want to interact with the presenters.
• Recording is easier logistically

• Ask attendees to survey your group
• Ask presenters to become members of your group and to RSVP to the event
• Assuming you have the sponsor’s and presenter’s email addresses, ask them to tweet the event and to retweet and favorite the meetup event