How clubs Can & Have Benefited From Using Meet-up
My name is Sai Ramachandran and I am the 2016-17 President of the Georgia Commerce Club Toastmasters. We meet every Tuesday at 6:30 PM at the Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church in Duluth.
Since chartering in 2013, this club has attracted a wide variety of members. From experienced DTMs looking for a Toastmaster home in a new city to absolute newcomers who came in through our doors, wide-eyed and a little nervous, to make our club their own, we have them all. Meetup.com has been an invaluable resource in fostering this growth.
I myself was one of those wide-eyed and nervous guests who found this club through Meetup.com. I had recently moved to Atlanta in late 2014 and was looking to rekindle my love for public speaking. I read reviews of this club, saw some recent photos, and decided to make the trip to a meeting. This was mid-March 2015. By April 1st, 2015, I had joined the club and within a few months was enthusiastically rating and reviewing club meetings on the Meetup website.
You must be wondering why Meetup.com works. What makes it such a good tool to drive club growth? I have given this some thought and I believe these are the reasons why being active on Meetup.com was a winning strategy for Georgia Commerce Club Toastmasters.
1. Committed user base – Meetup.com has a very loyal group of users. It is one of those sites which many have never heard of or used but the people who use it, use it for everything. Wherever they go, they use it to find all sorts of activities like writing groups, run clubs, and Toastmasters.
2. Trusted Ratings and Reviews – much like Amazon, Meetup.com also encourages attendees to review each meeting. These ratings are a factor in determining where your meetup appears in search results.
3. Photos – Meetup.com’s superb UI make it very easy to upload and view photos of meetups. Seeing someone in a photograph and then seeing that same person at an actual meeting creates a very powerful positive emotion in our guests.
4. Well designed mobile app and Website: Meetup’s website and mobile apps make the entire search and review process a cinch and it does not hurt to associate ourselves with such good products.
In fact, a recent guest at our club specifically called out our detailed description of a typical meeting on our Meetup page for convincing her to come to our meeting.
I hope this brief description of how Meetup has helped Georgia Commerce Club Toastmasters will encourage your club to avail yourself of this wonderful resource. If are you serious about club growth, expanding your presence on Meetup.com should be in your plans.