Start a Steemit Meetup to Build A Strong Community!
Steemit and Meetup.com make a great combination. We can strengthen our community if we leverage Meetup.com. I realize that there are a lot of people new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and although there are plenty of resources online and especially on Steemit, nothing beats face-to-face interaction to build relationships and learn from each other. As even more mainstream users get into Steemit there is going to be a great demand to understand how to maneuver around the crypto world, how to secure digital assets from scammers and hackers, how to exchange your digital assets with others and also just keep up with latest Steemit news. For example after @complexring's post about the SBD/Steem premium I realized that now was most likely a good opportunity to take SBD off the table at a 30 to 40% premium, but if you're new to crypto that's not an easy task. There are risks with exchanges and potential for mistakes or headaches. Having someone local for guidance definitely helps. There might be a need for some hand-holding as well. I've been around crypto for some time now, but I forget how challenging it is to do simple things. In-person meetings will definitely expedite the learning curve. There are so many aspects to Steemit and cryptocurrencies and this is only the tip of the iceberg right? The Steemit ecosystem and content is expanding at a rapid pace and there are so many different projects going on it's already getting hard to keep track of. If you're new to crypto it's probably an even bigger challenge.
Fostering Local Community
If we foster our local community we can help each other tremendously. We can also build up an ecosysem for local exchange of goods & services. We can set up peer-to-peer local SBD/Steem and digital asset exchanges. We can network for collaborations and business ventures. There are an abundance of benefits.
Future
Years down the road we may not need to use Meetup because we could easily post events on Steemit, but for now there is already an active user base there and using that platform is a marketing channel to draw existing users here to Steemit.
I searched Steemit and there is actually the first Steemit meetup in Seattle to be held July 23rd posted a few days ago. There was another request for one in NYC. I've reached out to @anwenbaumeister and @donkeypong here locally in the SF Bay Area for a meetup. If there is anyone else in the SF Bay Area please just respond below! If others want to start or request a local meetup just feel free to respond below as well! If you've never organized a meetup before, it's easy! Just do it! Looking forward to meeting Steemians in person!
This is exactly what has been missing in the Steem community. Just like YouTube has VidCon, maybe a SteemCon? can be arranged for Steemians has well. This will greatly enhance the community!
But, for Steemians abroad, this is gonna be difficult. I, am from India, and there are only a handful of people who know about Steem. So, we can't even arrange such a meetup. Noone would show up! Any advice for that?
Also, Slack has been down for quite a while now, and I have been just waiting for a chance to join Slack. The "community" part has been missing for me since I joined a week ago. Maybe soon! :)
Yes. We can eventually build our way there ...international conferences and all! Steemian celebrities!
You can start small meetups with a handful of people and just meet monthly .. in the US coffee shops, laundry mats, colleges, telephone poles are places you can hang posters/flyers. If there is something like that in India... yes you can also start virtually with message boards/slack/google hangout/skype with others in India as well just to start.
good idea! will try that!! as for slack, it has been down for a lot of days. really want to join in.
And, I don't usually do this, but could you please check out my latest original piece that I posted?
https://steemit.com/steemit/@sauravrungta/on-the-seventh-day-of-steemit-my-true-love-said-to-me-my-exciting-first-week-on-steemit#
STEEMCON!!! LIKE COMINCON!!!
Aw, you beat me to it ;) Maybe I'll make one down in Melbourne.
I'll be making one for North Queensland. We should meet somewhere in the middle afterwards. Australia's community will without a doubt flourish from something like this!
Glad to hear. You should definitely make one!
Id go to one in Newcastle if it existed. Or I could visit Melb. Love visiting Melbourne.
Anyone in #boston interested in doing this?
Yeah thats a great idea! I'm here in Providence
We did a meetup already! It was fun. Interesting as the majority of the people were (nearly) retired professionals who had just heard of various blockchain techs within the last few months.
Great. Did you use Meetup.com? Feel free to link your meetup details here for others to join the next one. It's great to hear new and older professionals are coming on board!
Yes. Here's our posts on our meetups we did:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@edgeland/blockchain-enthusiasts-meetup-to-discuss-steem-whitepaper
and
https://steemit.com/steemit/@edgeland/knoxville-blockchain-enthusiasts-meetup-1st-follow-up
Great! Have you thought about a Steemit-specific group? I'm just trying to figure out what audience to reach out too. I run a Bitshares/blockchain group, but it maybe better to try to find bloggers and mainstream people.
I just want to verify, the purpose of doing this would be to help grow our steemit community, correct?
No doubt this is an exciting time for us all!
However, excitement alone can scare some people --- "Why does this crazy person want us to write blogs???"
So how would you recommend we introduce steemit to people who know NOTHING about crypto-currency?
Yes. Grow & strengthen the existing community. Lol. Yes it's important to control some of the excitement and let people discover the 'realness' of getting paid something for blogging. I would avoid discussing crypto-currency in the beginning. I would just focus on the idea that there is a platform/business that compensates people very well for blogging. The crypto-currency part could be saved for advanced sessions and for people who have earnings and are trying to figure out how to exchange and use their digital assets in the real world. It really depends on the audience. A meetup with Bitcoiners would be far different than one for the general public.
Ok, that makes sense. I do believe that it's best for people to just jump in and get their feet wet first, and they can learn along the way, like most of us are doing!
My town is small but you never know where talent is hiding ;-)
Agreed about learning along the way. Yeah if the town is small you can probably just post flyers at the local town center or coffee shop or something like that ... you probably don't need to pay for Meetup.com in the beginning.
Oh, great tip!
thanks :-)
Let's make it happen! I'm sure there are a ton of Steemians in the Bay Area.
Hey @anwenbaumeister! Let's do this! I was just going through the process of starting up the meetup and they ask for topics for our group. I think this is important because when you first start they blast out an email to those who subscribe to certain topics. They let us choose 15.. I have so far: Blogging, Writing, Photography, Travel, Money, Beauty, [Social Networking, Medium, Reddit, Social Media - might be good for SEO because they actually have subdomain listings such as http://www.meetup.com/topics/blogs/] , Self-empowerment, Philosophy, Technology, Bitcoin, Digital Currency. What do you think? Missing anything? Thx!
Definitely interested in something like this. Will keep my eyes open for more about this by adding you to my list of Steemians I follow through Steemstream.
Keep us informed!
My twin sister and I visit SF a lot for tech competitions. So, definitely would love to reach out to a local meetup in SF. Do post another post when meetup is official :)
Will do! Yeah you two should head up a meetup in LA eventually too. Twin sister coders? Cool background!
Thank you steemrollin! We are heading up to SF today to be judges for the weekend HACK 4 DIVERSITY AT CODE2040. We've been invited by Github.
Great. If you're free to chat while you're up here just email me at: [email protected]!
thank you. Ours is [email protected]
@steemrollin
lol
well this is a brilliant idea and wondering if someone in #Houston or #Texas for that matter has thought about setting up one of these... let me know. I'm down for that
Great to hear!
@steemrollin this a good idea, I see this for the future steemit, support meetup held, cheers...!!!
