A “meetup” doesn’t have to be through the group “meetup” online. You can plan one through Facebook Events or other methods, but using Meetup.com is a good idea. It’s a great way to get the word out about your event. Meeting up with people locally is a great way to make connections and increase your authority.

Have a Plan

To have a successful meetup event, it’s important to have an agenda of some sort – such as to teach those who come something new within your niche. For instance if you’re a prolific blogger, blogging about weight loss, you could have a meetup focused on weight loss support. At the meetup you can provide attendees with tips and tricks to lose weight effectively, as well as provide information so they can sign up for your online newsletter and order your eBooks, products and services.

Invite Speakers

You can invite speakers to your meetup to make it more inviting to have more people attend. Since you’re the host, and you invited the speakers, your audience will automatically associate you with the speakers – which will increase your perceived authority within your niche. Since you were smart enough to invite them, they’ll see you in the same league as your guests. Kind of like Oprah.

Consider Profit Potential

If for example you build and design WordPress websites, you could have a meetup to show people how to use WordPress to build their own websites for their local businesses. While some attendees will certainly build their own after learning, most won’t, which will give you an opportunity to earn clients. Giving away knowledge is a great way to get new clients. Your potential clients see that you know enough about the topic to teach it; therefore, you should be able to do a great job for them if they just pay you to do it.

Make the Events Regular and Consistent Calendar Items

The more often you have the events, the more likely more people are to show up. At first you may have very few attendees. However, over time, you’ll get more attendees if you are sure to market your event, and host informative events that are useful to your audience. Give it time, and don’t give up after one try.

Promote Your Events

Using social media, your blog, online newsletters and even a newspaper advertisement and flyers, advertise and promote your event. Even if you only have room for 20 people to attend your event, ensuring you fill up those 20 seats requires continuous promotion of the event. Blog about it, get interviewed about it, and post about it on social media for best results. To promote future events, consider recording portions of the current event so that people can see how great your event is.

Finally, when you host your event, be confident. Remember, you planned the event; the people came. It’s likely even if you don’t know everything, that you do know more than your guests. As the host, you’re the expert in the room. However, don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” when someone asks you a question that you don’t know. Authorities aren’t know-it-alls; they’re just people who know how to find the information and put it to use.