How to organise a Tweetup

How to organise a Tweetup

Recently I went to the #Lex2011tweetup – which was very well attended by nearly 60 Tweeting lawyers and Tweeters connected to the legal profession. As a result, finally I got to meet so many people I’d been Tweeting with for months.

As a result of this event, I thought I would write my guide to organising a successful Tweetup – an ‘in-person’ meeting of people on Twitter.

1 Involve others

Getting people in one place at a certain time requires energy and commitment. So, find some other co-organisers to help spread the word and the message. The more people who are well connected on Twitter who get involved, the easier it is to get people to come along.

2 Pick a time or place where lots of people are going to be about

Unless you plan on making the event a recurring event, pick a time and location where lots of your ideal attendees are going to be present. For example, organising a Tweetup around a conference schedule is a great way to get both Tweeting members of the conference to turn up, but encourages others to also attend.

3 Use an event hashtag

An event hashtag – eg #Lex2011tweetup – enables people to search on this term, see who is also attending and spread the word about the event.

4 Decide on a purpose

Tweetups are better attended if there is a purpose. For example, a local Tweetup, such as #Bedfordtweetup or a #Twegal meetup (meeting of lawyers who tweet).

5 Get a room!

A popular Tweetup can attract 50+ people. Make sure you have gained permission to host the event at the location of your choosing – and if possible get a private room. Most pub landlords will happily let you host the event at their pub and often reserve an area of the pub for you – normally for free.

6 Manage the event

Use an application such as www.twtvite.com/ to handle the event management. Organising an event such as a Tweetup involves admin. Anything that can help you with this is a must – particularly if it is a free piece of software such as Twtvite, which integrates seamlessly with Twitter. This nifty piece of software sends out a reminder to everyone who has accepted before the event. It collates all the Tweets that use the event hashtag, allows people to leave comments about the event, provides a guest list and shows the location of Tweetup.

Heather Townsend, chief coach and founder at The Efficiency Coach

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