Tiny Bird Heart Takeover | Abzmeet and How to organise your own blogger meet up

Almost a year ago, I organised the first ever Abzmeet. It all began when I started chatting to local blogger and same time baby-mama Sarah of Sarah Rooftops. After a while we wanted to meet in person and discussed the idea of holding a local blogger meetup.

Photo Credit to Sam from Rose Bud Annie for the photo

We got in touch with some other bloggers we knew from the area, arranged a time and date and that was pretty much it! There were only seven of us back then but we started to meet regularly, I set up a Facebook page (which now has 44 members), and earlier this year I set up a weekly Twitter chat, #abzchat. Although we started off as strangers it really feels like we are friends and part of a supportive community now!

Now I'm no expert, but here are my tips for starting a blogger meetup:

Get in touch with people you'd like to invite

Start liking and following bloggers you'd like to meet and strike up a conversation. You might want to use the opportunity to ask if they'd be interested in attending a meetup and if so what they'd like the event to be like.

Decide what kind of meetup you'd like to hold

It might be specific to a type of blogger or include everyone from a specific area, you might want to have a casual meetup or organise a sponsored or ticket only event. If you've asked potential attendees what type of event they'd be interested in then it's more likely they'll attend.

Organise your meetup

Decide on dates, times and a venue. We try to go with a different cafe or restaurant each time and stick to coffee/brunch in a central location so that it keeps the costs down for everyone. You might want to get in touch with local venues and ask if they can do a special deal or book an area but this may depend on the number of people attending.

Advertise your event

Once you've organised the detail, advertise! Invite those bloggers you'd love to meet, post it all over social media and your blog and ask others to share and invite people who may be interested. I set up a Facebook page after the first event as it was much easier to track who was attending and who'd been invited. We usually ask questions about where and when people would like to meet next but I've found it's better to give a couple of options and see what the majority choose as there will always be people who can't attend.

Organise people on the day

You want your event to be success and for everyone to feel welcome so as the organiser you'll want to familiarise yourself with the bloggers attending. We usually share our blog links on Facebook prior to meetups so that we can read about those attending and get to know a bit about them.

Get feedback

After the event you'll want feedback. Find out what people thought, what they liked and didn't like, how the meetup could be improved, and if they'd like to attend more. Ask people to get in touch with links to their posts if they write about the event and share and comment on them.

Good luck!

Have you organised a meetup or do you have any tips? Let me know below!