Re: [UG-ADMINS] Promoting your PUG

I have to second what Keith said about Meetup.

When I was with Atlanta PHP, we were originally on Meetup.com, and when
they started charging, we dropped our account. In the year that followed,
we noticed that people couldn't find us because they were looking
exclusively on Meetup.com for PHP user groups, and on at least one
occurrence, someone else created another local PHP user group because they
didn't know ours existed.

To be honest, this boggles my mind, but Meetup.com is definitely where a
lot of people are looking for your group, so it benefits you to have your
group promoted there.

-Ben




On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 9:27 AM, D Keith Casey Jr
<[email protected]>wrote:

>
> 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<https://www.google.com/voice?pli=1#phones>
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>
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