Are you using Meetup.com to network offline with your online contacts? Well, let me tell you first hand, you should be. I attended a meeting for the DFW WordPress Meetup Group this past Saturday and I had a wonderful time, made some great contacts, and learned some things I can implement right away to add revenue to my business.
If you haven’t been to a meet up, then I highly suggest you visit Meetup.com and look for a topic that interests you. There is probably a Meetup group in your area that specializes in your topic of interest.
Meet ups are an awesome way to connect with your peers, learn and share new thing, and be motivated to take action on your own projects.
At Saturday’s WordPress Meetup I met a blogger who was on the Mike Huckabee campaign, a blogger with a popular Stephen Colbert fan site, a brand new sustainability blogger, an eBay affiliate blogger, and a Spanish language blogger, all in the span of about two hours.
Some of the things that I learned in that short time frame were truly invaluable. For instance, I was able to confirm some eBay affiliate information I had heard, and I learned that I could get a higher affiliate payout using the PepperJam Network than the eBay Partner Network. That was well worth the time spent all by itself.
It was also interesting to actually get to talk face-to-face with people that I talk with on Twitter. It was good to see the promise of online social networking take shape in an off-line conversation. I will say it was a little hard to match screen names and avatar thumbnails to actual faces.
It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I had missed saying hello in person to a few of the people I talked with on Twitter. But, overall it was good to connect nonetheless.
Overall, the Dallas WordPress Meetup was a big success with about 40 people showing up. Tony Cecala gave an overview presentation on installing WordPress 2.7.
Tony did a great job of covering the high points dealing with hosting, control panel options, blog structure, and custom themes. He finished up with a useful list of plug-ins.
It is always difficult these fit everything into a two hour meet up, with Tony did a great job summarizing everything in about 40 minutes.
If you’re in the Dallas area and are looking for a good WordPress group, then check out the DFW WordPress Meetup calendar. We meet once a month and it’s well worth the time.
If you’re not in the Dallas area, be sure to check the Meetup.com website to find a group in your area and get connected.
Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
