Re: [UG-ADMINS] Promoting your PUG

Use Meetup.

I know it costs money ($72/6 months?) but I am *amazed* on how many 
people check there first and exclusively for groups. Even after 
promoting the crap out of DC PHP for years, it never grow as fast until 
Sandy Smith put it on Meetup.

Three months ago in Austin we launched the AustinAPI group and went from 
3 (founders) to 132 right now. Yes, we use Twitter extensively and each 
of us are relatively known in the space, but none of us know at least 
half of the people.

If it's *really* just a matter of cost, drop me a message offlist as we 
(Twilio) can probably sponsor.

keith

On 6/27/13 9:13 AM, James Titcumb wrote:
> PHP Hampshire, still early in it's life, we use Twitter extensively to try
> to connect with developers in the area. We use Eventbrite to organise our
> events, so I'm slowly building up a list of "previous attendees" that we
> can market to, as well as our Google Group account.
>
> Twitter is working really well for us, and as Joe rightly mentioned you get
> out what you put in.
>
> I think the best way to promote is just to put yourself (or, rather, the
> group) out there and wave it as much as possible in people's faces.
>
> Giving away free stuff is always helpful if you can afford it, I think.
> (e.g. ask companies for giveaway material, or pizza/beer type thing).
>
>
>
> On 27 June 2013 15:05, Joe Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> For MemphisPHP:
>>
>> 1) Meetup.com has been GREAT for us. I also use Twitter (admittedly not as
>> much as I should). Hootsuite is a great way to que up a month of tweets
>> promoting your group. I use it for other things at the moment, I just need
>> to add MemphisPHP to the rotation. I also have made friends with a lot of
>> the other User Group leaders in town and we regularly have "super" user
>> group meetings were we all meet at the same time and do lightning talks.
>> It's a great way to get your city's developers together for talks and
>> networking. In Memphis, most of the User groups have started using a shared
>> meetup.com account. This lets us all advertise to all the user groups for
>> a
>> broader reach. MemphisPHP is going to start using it very soon so I'm
>> expecting good things for our future. Contacting nearby groups/speakers has
>> helped us out for ideas for topics / presentations. We also have a local
>> user group leader's email list so we can easily call for help / speakers /
>> ideas with other local UG leaders. All of the user groups use a common hash
>> tag on twitter (#memtech) for helping get our message out to the local tech
>> community.
>>
>> 2) Social Media has worked great for us, but you get out of it what you put
>> in. There are tools out there to help. Also connecting with other user
>> group leaders has helped with the sharing of ideas and in some cases, talks
>> / presentations.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:26 AM, Cal Evans <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all!
>>>
>>> Ok, so let's talk promoting PUGs.
>>>
>>> 1: What have you done to promote your PUG?
>>> Social Media?
>>> Visiting Other Groups?
>>> Contacting Schools/Universities?
>>>
>>> 2: What one thing worked best for you?
>>> Why do you think it worked so well?
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>> =C=
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Read this book* before you hire a
>>> developer to build your website.
>>> *Avoiding a Goat Rodeo* <http://avoidingagoatrodeo.com>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - Joe Ferguson
>> http://www.midsouthmakers.org
>> http://www.memphisphp.org
>>
>> <https://www.google.com/voice?pli=1#phones>
>>