Pick your event site
I was recently invited to a social media gathering in Ottawa. In fact, I received two invitations from the host within ninety minutes of each other; one from Meetup.com, the other from Facebook.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe I can attend the event. Nevertheless, I checked both sites to gauge response and determine if there is any consistency to the responses between the sites. I noticed that Meetup.com indicates 6 confirmations, 4 maybes and 1 regret, and Facebook indicates 17 confirmations, 41 maybes and 55 regrets.
While I appreciate the need to cater to the ‘online styles’ of all invitees, I wonder about the fractured nature of our online reservation systems. I realize that we cannot dictate the online habits of the members of the community, yet I wonder about the administrative efforts imposed on event organizers to promote their events and manage communications with the participants.
If we can get the physical location, date and time figured out for the real-life interaction, can we not do the same for the way we coordinate ourselves in the online world?
April 15th, 2008 at 6:34 am
So we’ve had the London Podcaster Meetup going for a year now and when I first started sending out invites I blogged about it and put the event on Facebook. That worked good, got a few new faces that I hadn’t already talked to there so I was happy. After a bit I added it to eventful and upcoming, I figure I got likely one person from each just because they happen to see the event on those site. Then 11 meetings into it I put it on Meetup.com and it “exploded!” The first meetup after it was there was double any other before. That was definitely worth it! Maybe it seams to some that only getting one extra person out of being on one more site may not be worth it but if you go from five people to six it makes a big difference, then to jump from six to twelve is huge. I agree that you shouldn’t send out invites to people from every one but I do think you should list everywhere and invite from one that is most appropriate. And if your going to pick two Facebook is for sure number 1 and I’ve had great luck with MeetUp.com. I don’t like that you have to pay but it works!