Meetup is good for Organizing & Business

• Jul 19th, 2010
• Posted by Jason
• Posted in Meetup.com, Social Media Events, Stats

If you’re not familiar with Meetup, you should be after Mashable leveraged its new “Meetup everywhere” feature to organize Social Media Day on June 30th, a day to celebrate the social media revolution by encouraging aficionados to gather in person to discuss and exchange ideas about social media of course.

With more than 700 meetups held in 93 countries, and more than 11,000 confirming their attendance, Social Media Day was a success, and now Mashable is continuing the social movement with monthly Mashable meetups where the offline dialogue about social media and Mashable (the brand) will continue. I won’t be surprised if a few social media projects and tools originate from these conversations.

Meetup is all about creating opportunities for face-to-face conversation no matter the place or subject, allowing people with similar interests to connect online, and meet offline. The following statistics begin to capture how Meetup is bringing people together:

• 6 million monthly visitors
• 7.2 million members
• 2.2 million monthly RSVPs
• 250,000 monthly meetups
• 79,000 local groups
• 46,000 topics
• 45,000 cities

While informal groups started by individuals are the norm at Meetup, brands like Mashable understand that face-to-face engagement complements online, and that businesses can benefit from creating, organizing, and hosting events as well.

Additionally, businesses can sponsor groups, providing them with a place to meet, offering discounts on products or services, or helping to pay their monthly Meetup subscription fees. Groups supported by sponsors can then display their logo on their page, allowing members to engage directly.

As noted above, more than 700 meetups were held on Social Media Day. Since many of them were hosted in gathering places such as coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores, and so forth, these space providing businesses can, and many probably did, cater to them. As a member of a local meetup, our group regularly meets at five or six places because they’ve been gracious hosts, and we thank them through generous tips. I recently discovered a very meetup friendly place—Zippys Java Lounge—which highlights hosted events and links directly to their venue Meetup page.