Building and Growing a Meetup Group
Jason Craig and I built a security meetup group in the southern bay area called Silisec. After telling multiple people how we did it. I figured I would outline what we did here and then I can refer people to this page.
Identify Who You Want
The first thing to do is identify who you want to be there. Who do you personally want to hang out with and talk to. Whoever you would be interested in talking to, others will be too. The fastest way that I have found to identify great people, especially if you are new to an area, is by using Twitter.
Start constructing your list of people who you think would be fun to hang out with. I recommend at least 50 people, but if you don’t have relationships with these people yet, shoot for 100. Begin reaching out to them and telling them about your event. Say something like, “I am starting a monthly meetup group and would be really interested in buying you a beer and talking to you about XYZ.”
It has been my experience that people on twitter or more responsive if you send them a tweet rather than an email.
Stick With A Date
Pick a date and stick with it. For Silisec, we chose the first Thursday of the month. It didn’t matter if it was raining, people were out of town, or a conference was going on. Regardless of anything else, on the first Thursday of the month, people could count on Silisec happening.
By picking a date you are ensuring people don’t have to subscribe to a list or a calendar or a meetup.com event, they just know when the event will occur. Other meetup groups choose a meetup date by committee. I think this is not effective. Why designate something to a committee or community that one person can decide and stick with?
Following Up
The original list of people that you created should be reached out to and reminded continually. Keep bugging them. Remind them every single month a few days before the event that it is happening. Also, send them a reminder the morning of. If they don’t respond, keep sending the emails. A lack of response means they are busy, it doesn’t mean they aren’t interested.
If they have already shown up, thank them for showing up and send them reminders for the next event. It is your job as the coordinator to instill in them a habit of showing up every month.
Be Friendly & Tell Everyone
It will take time but your event will begin to grow organically. People will start showing up who you don’t know. Go out of your way to introduce yourself to these people.
Ask them a bunch of questions to get them interested in the event. I typically ask people how they found out about the event and what their interests are. Then I introduce them to someone else who is at the event that has the same interests and skill sets. People want to attend events where they can learn from people and where they can have fun.
Anytime you meet someone not at the event, but who could be interested in it, tell them about it. Ask them for a business card and send them emails just like you did with the initial group of people.
A Web Presence
People who have not been personally invited to the event need to figure out more about the event. A simple website, showing what the event is, and the next time it will be occurring is the easiest way to do this. You could use a site like meetup.com, or build your own if you don’t want to pay fees.
I chose to build ours. I used Jekyll and built a simple layout. The silisec page is hosted on github (for free) and is incredibly easy to update. If you want a template to get started, you can copy the silisec meetup page. There is even a script that will auto generate the next meetup for you. It is currently set to generate the first Thursday of the following month.
Hopefully this helps you get started building some type of community. If you ever need help or if I haven’t addressed something here. Feel free to leave a comment and I will answer it to the best of my ability.