Last month I reported that I had launched a Meetup group called, "Menifee Internet Professionals Group", and that I was going to tell you how the first meeting went.

First, this is a group of people who live in my general area, either in the town of Menifee, or in the surrounding cities. We're all people who earn a living on the Internet, either full time or part time. We're website publishers, programmers, designers, SEO consultants, graphics designers, Flash designers and IT people.

Well, we had the first meeting, and it went great!

There were six of us who met, out of the 12 members that signed for the group. Three of the members present were those that I specifically invited, while two others were those that I were unfamiliar with. The other member present, was me.

We chatted for two hours on all sorts of topics, mostly learning about each other. I wanted to specifically talk about how to encourage local businesses in our community to buy advertising on our websites. We also talked about our own experiences dealing with local businesses.

More importantly, this was meant to be a social meeting, not an educational one. And for that matter, we all had fun socializing.

One of the members present mentioned that our group could potentially earn income itself, by charging other professionals to become members, or even charging local businesses to hear our thoughts on the Internet. Quite possible, and maybe that's a direction we might go in.

At the tail end of the meeting, we talked about needing a web forum where we chat away in between meetings. One member stepped up to say that he already has a forum built, and just needs to make some tweaks.

All six of us agreed to meet again next month. I just need to schedule it on our Meetup site.

You might try setting up a similar group in your location. Just as a way to bring others like you together to socialize, and refer business to each other, find future business partners, and brainstorm new revenue ideas.  

Labels: Meetup Group