Advice for Starting a User Group

I recently chronicled how our Central Arkansas Refresh user group came about in 2009 and how it has had such an awesome impact on me in a blog post.  Given my involvement with that project I have been asked by several others looking to form user groups of their own for advice on how to get started.  Here’s a quick and easy outline of thoughts that I put together, hope you find this useful…

Have a Steering Committee

This committee can consist of people with similar interests that express an interest in meeting on a regular basis.  You can leverage social media to put this group together by just mentioning what it is you are wanting to do with the group.  Once you have a steering committee put together with about 10 people or so you can usually start seeing things come together quickly…

Identify the Focus of the Group

This is best done w/ a room of people who can make suggestions.  You will find that discussions in this meeting will be very democratic and easy to moderate.  It’s usually good to be pretty broad with the scope of the group so that it will leave you open to a wider variety of topics.

Find a Meeting Location

Since a lot of your meetings are going to be interactive and will require an internet connection, chose your location carefully.  We met at a Starbucks for our first couple of meetings until we outgrew that setting.  Don’t be afraid to ask local establishments for room donations either, you will be surprised how much of an impact your group meeting will have on their business, especially if they serve drinks.

Acquire Sponsorships for the Group

If you are forming a technical user group there are a wealth of companies out there that are vendors to your industry.  Don’t be afraid to ask them for sponsorships for your group.  Tell them what you are doing and just ask for whatever you need.  They will often times send you t-shirts, software licenses, etc., that they have left over from conferences.  At first I thought that sponsorship swag would be a big draw for our group but I quickly found that it was the networking and the subject matter that made the most impact…

Keep Topics Fresh and Relevant

Some of our best attendances have been when we had speakers talking on a topic that was either emerging or in the news.  Some of our lowest attendance came when we had topics that were of interest to only a small segment of the group.

Establish a Regular Meeting Time / Location

We meet on the last Tuesday of each month at the same location.  This has helped our overall attendance.  (We have however been looking at opportunities to change our venue to a different location).

Use Social Media to Promote Your Meetings

One of the best things we ever did was setup a Facebook Group for our user group.  This has allowed us to send our meeting notifications and receive RSVP’s for the meetings.  It has also affected our growth.  Twitter is also an awesome tool for promoting meetings and picking up new members.