Meetup is a powerful and effective way of creating awareness and educating people about something we cherish. It is also a medium of passing information over to people and also serve as a networking platform. Steemit has been witnessing a dramatic increase in the number of users as a result of several meetups organised by steemians in several countries and communities.
The power of Steem Meetup is something we cannot underrate. It has to be taken seriously before I will discuss the new tool for organizing and listing meetup events, I would be emphasising more on how to organize a meetup in your area.
How do we mobilize people for Steem Meetup?
Many people are afraid of organizing Meetup because of the cost attached to it. The cost of organizing Meetup events depends on how big the event will be. Of course, it will cost you more if you are doing it in a big way, but I’m going to tell you today that you can organize Steem meetup in a small way in your local community, among friends, workplace among others. You do not need to start Meetup in a big way for the first time, and also remember that as a member of steemit that is promoting steemit and sub-project on steemit, steemians gat your back. You do not need to wait until you are rich before you organized a meetup about Steemit in your desired place, you just need to start somewhere and with the little you have. After you have started from the little you can always seek help to fund your promotion project on steemit which I will discuss later in this post.
Organizing Meetup in a Small way before asking for help on steemit
It is best to start a meaningful project before asking for help, as doing that will show the members of the community that you are really serious about contributing your quota to the development of Steem Blockchain. I wish Steemit will cap more than 100,000 000 users before the end of 2018. We can do this together by telling people about steemit that is why we have the meetup. Apart from the meetup, there are several ways you can inform people around you about steemit and its benefits as I have been doing in my community almost all my friends and some of my family members are now on steemit. Though not all are very active I have some very active members. Do not expect everyone you talk about steemit to take it seriously.
Without wasting our time, there are two types of Meetup you can organize to mobilized or inform people about Steemit that will give them liberty from the oppression of poverty:
- Physical Steem Meetup
- Virtual Steem Meetup
Physical Steem Meetup
Mobilizing and bringing together will take whatever you are promoting far beyond your expectation and not only what are you promoting will it take but also will it take you far in life. A meetup is a powerful tool for networking, if you have been on steemit for a while you would understand what I’m talking about better. Many Steem Meetup has been organized to promote Steemit and to help community members across the globe.
To fabricate an idea is easy, implementation is very important. If you have ever tried to organize a small meeting or get-together with friends would know that planning and preparation it the main key to the success of any Meetup. Meetup requires proper planning and preparation for it to make a good impact.
What you need to put into Consideration before Organizing a Meetup
Identify the reason for the Meetup
Firstly, you have to consider the reason why you want to organize the Meetup wherever you want to. For example; to liberate people of your community from the oppression of poverty; Youth empowerment among other reasons.
Do your research about the community where you are to organize the meetup and the kind of people you are meeting in the area. You cannot just go to any community without finding out more about the people living in the community, most especially the youth in that community. Youths in every community are usually the agent of change. Let your primary target be the youth of that community followed by the old ones. Getting the attention of the youths will contribute more to the success of the meetup as they would help spread the good news to others.
Craft the aims and Objectives of the Meetup
Write down a clear lead statement that best explains exactly what the Steem Meetup is all about. Use simple and clear grammar in your official language that people that will attend the meetup will understand what you hope to bring to their community and what the meetup is all about.
Pen down about 10 theme suggestion for your meetup that will attract readers to come to the meetup. You might have interesting things to discuss, but if the theme is not attractive and captivating enough to win over passers-by to, the meetup will witness a low turnout. The theme of your Meetup will determine the kind of people that will attend the meetup. Since Steemit Meetup is always free to expect a high turnout, people always love freebies.
Form a Meetup Group
You will need to form a group where people can contact you to ask questions about the venue and little questions about the meetup before the event day and after the event day. A typical example of such group on discord is #Nigeria 
Forming this group required group administrator which must include the organizer and other trusted member on steemit to pioneer the group. Those in the position of administrator or selected to hold other position to help incoming users must be ready and willing to help with whatever questions asked by the prospect users. They must possess a good listening skill and must not be too aggressive in whatever ways. The group may be public or private through invitations, but I would always advise making the group public before the meetup, and after the meetup, you can create a private group where the only serious user can access through invitation. In the private group, you must be willing to tutor the new user on how to best use steemit and how to contribute their best to the development of the community.
Tools to create the group
- Use Discord App. Download discord application on Google Play Store for Android or visit their website for more information.
- Create Group on WhatsApp’s
- Create Group on Telegram
- Create group on Facebook, Instagram
- Meetup.com
Select a Location
Since you already have a plan of what you want to discuss about and the kind of people you will be meeting with in a particular area, it is now time to pick a venue where the meetup will hold. Yes! This is where financial challenges come in for the organizer, but I will tell you that you do not have to spend much to secure a location for Steemit Meetup.
If you want to organize a meetup in your local community the following are the procedure to secure a location for the meeting, since it is all about empowering people of the community for free:
Firstly, locate the youth leader of such community or the community head and discuss the meetup with them, and also how it is going to help empower especially the talented youth of such community. Once you are able to convince them, for sure they will be willing to release a secure location for free to hold the meeting, a location like community town hall, school hall, bigger classrooms and other spacious venues for free. Do not doubt this method, it has really worked for me before I came across steemit.
Secondly, if you can afford to rent a hall to accommodate people, why not! Go ahead and do so.
Create Awareness
After you have secured a location for the meetup, you have to create awareness for the program for people to be informed about the event that will be happening is a specific date. You can create awareness in several ways depending on your budget for the event. Let say you do not have enough fund for the event you can create awareness in the following ways:
- Design a soft banner to be posted on Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, telegram, YouTube among other social media. Containing details of the event which must include the theme, time, date, venue of the event.
- Create an account with MeetUp.com and set up your profile. This is a very useful online tool most people use to find out meetup events going on in a specific environment. I will discuss more on how to best use this tools later on this post.
- Print handbills the number of copies you can afford and share it in your environments to people passing by, students in the higher institution and other places or locations you have the plan to share the handbills.
- Inform your friends and families about the events.
- Print steemit T-shirt or Cap carrying the logo of Steemit and on The T-shirt logo and few Keyword about steemit like “Blog, Comment and Earn for free”
- Set aside few copies of T-shirt and Caps or other items as gifts on the event day, remember to include that in your banner and handbills.
Day of the Meetup
For the program to go as planned, you have to do final preparation, I mean the last minutes preparation to see that all resources needed have been put in place. Call the location of the venue for final confirmation, arrange all necessary equipment needed for the meeting before the arrival of people. This is very important, to avoid disappointment before and during the meeting. Before the day of the meetup get the details of those that will be attending the meeting. You can do this by instructing interested people to send their details to a giving email address, you can also create a google form for them to fill. This procedure will help you to know the number of seats you will reserve.
Sponsorships
Yes! As I had earlier said that you can always get sponsorship from steemit community, but you need to start something first, then you can now show the community the progress you have made on the project this will make the community members to believe you that you are really doing something great to promote the community. Lots of steemians will be ready to help you either through upvotes, Steem or sending SBD to your account to sponsor your program. Just be sincere and be transparent in whatever you to do. You can use the following tags to support your project #Promo-steem #project. 
The Future
After the successful completion of the meetup, you can't just stop there you will need to plan ahead for another event. It is always good to start planning minimum few weeks before the meetup date. Keep on expanding your network for steemit.
Keep Connected
After the meetup you will still have some work to do, you will need follow up those that have attended the meetup to keep connected with them. After the meetup you will have to render assistance to active members in your group that has registered on steemit in order to motivate them and to put them through with necessary resources they will need to succeed on steemit.
Meetup.com a great Online Tool to List Your Meetup
I discovered this tool last week while I was surfing the internet .with this tool you search, create meetup to bring people of like minds together. It is a good tool to create awareness about any meetup programs. I found some recent Steem Meetup listed on the platform and also you see some current upcoming steem meetup listed there like STEEM BERLIN Meetup, Houston Steem Meetup, Melbourne Steem Meetup, Lagos Steem Meetup, and Olympia Steem Meetup. Check this tool out and see how it works. On my next post I will be explaining more on how it works. Another Steem Meetup in USA was held at yesterday Thursday, 22nd of February, 2018 @7pm-9pm PST the venue was Mackensie River Pizza, 5 W. Canfield Ave. Coeur d’Alene, ID 83815 where you are going to meet successful steemians members are 
Please if I had omitted any tips, feel free to drop your suggestion at the comment section.
Thanks for reading! Together we can make Steemit great, let spread to good news across the globe!
Cheers!!!
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS