Meetings, hangouts, book launches, concerts, excursions… There are a lot of activities that attract us and that we would like to share with other people who share our same interests. To achieve this objective, in this post we tell you how organize events and activities with Meetup.
If you haven't heard of yet Meetup, we will tell you that it is a mobile application that incorporates some elements typical of a social network. A perfect tool to meet people, but above all to organize groups and events, with meetings that can be both face-to-face and virtual. Everything organized through this platform.
This platform was created by created by Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali in 2002. It currently has more than 330.00 groups of all topics and close to 20 million users.
There are many ways to take advantage of what Meetup has to offer: when we're looking for other people to go out and do running together, or to attend a movie premiere, or simply to meet and talk about any subject or hobby that we share with other people. In English, meet up It means just that: get together. Thanks to Meetup, numerous groups and communities stable in all parts of the world. We have the possibility to join any group or create our own.
But the first step to achieve all this is download and install the app on our mobile device (The only requirement is to be over 18 years). These are the download links for Android and iOS:
Create a Meetup account
The first step to take full advantage of Meetup is to sign up for the app or the web version. In both cases, the process consists of completing a simple form through the application or the web version. All you have to do is push the button "Check in" and fill in our contact details and a password. We can do it with Google, Facebook, Apple or by email.
Once the form is completed, we will receive a confirmation email with which we will be able to activate our account. Registered as a user, we can start looking for and joining the most interesting groups for us and even create not ours.
Depending on the data we have entered in our profile During registration, on the Meetup home page we will see a series of group suggestions. This information can be modified at any time by clicking on our profile and changing the "interests" menu.
Also from the profile we will be able customize other elements:
- Notifications
- Privacy settings.
- Linking to other social networks.
- Payment methods.
Join a Meetup group or event
The list of suggestions is always very successful, although to find more results by typing what we are looking for in the search engine, introducing the geographical area o exploring the different categories. In each proposal we will be able to see all the details of it: date and time, place of the event (if it is face-to-face), the duration, a brief description and the price. It also shows the number of users who have already joined the activity or meetup.
To join, just press the button "Assist", after which the payment will be processed through the means we have chosen during account setup.
A good way of not missing anything of what we are looking for is join meetup groups of our hobbies and interests: pregnant women, cyclists, computer programmers… You name it. True online communities that will enrich us a lot and will allow us to share opinions, ideas and information with people of the same wavelength. And if the group you are looking for does not exist, we always have the option of creating it ourselves.
How to create an event on Meetup
An event or meetup can be organized both in physical places to meet in person or through videoconference, when it comes to online meetings. Just go to the option "Create new meetup" and follow the steps indicated:
- First we choose the city where the event is held.
- Then we select the Thematic among the long list of possibilities that Meetup offers us.
- The next step is to put name or title to meetup and add a short description.
- We agree to the Meetup Community Rules and Terms.
- We may optionally send event invitations to other users we know.
If what we want to do is create an online event, click on the option to “create a new meetup”.
- First we indicate in the title that it is an online meeting.
- Then we press the button "Make this an online event" to receive the link.
- After we paste the link in the event description.
- Finally, we complete the additional adjustments and publish the event in our group.
Both in one case and in another, from the menu "Tools" we can shape the appearance of the meetup: upload images, choose colors, font type, etc. Everything so that the ad is attractive and as many participants as possible join it.
In event descriptions it is convenient to include a small presentation text of ourselves as creators and organizers of the meetup.
We can also set a price or offer the meetup for free. You can configure the option to accept or not the invitation, as well as create a welcome message.