I recently attended the #Lex2011tweetup – which was very well attended by nearly sixty tweeting lawyers and tweeters connected to the legal profession. Thank you so much to the organisers Brian Inkster and Linda Cheung. As a result of the event, I got to finally meet so many people I had been tweeting with for months and months...
As a result of this event, I thought I would write my guide to organising a successful tweetup. (i.e. a ‘in-person’ meeting of people on twitter)...

1. Involve others
Getting people in one place at a certain time requires energy and commitment. So, find some other co-organisers to help spread the word and the message. The more people who are well connected on twitter who get involved, the easier it is to get people to come along.

2. Pick a time or place where lots of people are going to be about
Unless you plan on making the event a recurring event, then pick a time and location where lots of your ideal attendees are going to be present. For example, organising a tweetup around a conference schedule is a great way to get both tweeting members of the conference to turn up, but encourages others to also attend.

3. Use an event hashtag
An event hashtag – e.g. #Lex2011tweetup enables people to search on this search term and see who is also attending, and spread the word about the event.

4. Decide on a purpose
Tweetups are better attended if there is a purpose to the tweetup. For example, a local tweetup, e.g. #Bedfordtweetup or a #Twegal meetup (meeting of lawyers who tweet)

5. Get a room!
A popular tweetup can get 50+ people attending. Make sure that you have gained permission to host the event at the location of your choosing – and if possible get a private room. Most pub landlords will happily let you host the event at their pub and often reserve an area of the pub for you – normally for free

6. Use an application like http://www.twtvite.com/ to handle the event management
Organising an event like a tweetup involves admin. Anything which can help you with this is a must – particularly if it is a free piece of software like twtvite which integrates seamlessly with twitter. This nifty piece of software,

•    Sends out a reminder to everyone who has accepted before the event.
•    Collates all the tweets which use the event hashtag
•    Allows people to leave comments about the event
•    Provides a guest list
•    Show location of tweetup


Have I missed anything?