Determine Valid Metrics for Monitoring Meetup Participation

Introduction

When asked to improve attendance at the various Meetups for WordPress the first step should be establishing a baseline to know where we started. A review of the Meetup.com platform revealed 1,150 WordPress groups worldwide.

Approximately 393 of those groups are recognized by WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. One way to immediately increase community size is to invite the 763 groups on Meetup.com to affiliate with WordPress.org.

This will also give a better picture of the community participation and possibly allow access to the analytics. Initially, we would ask for the metrics from the last three meetups and then information about any future meetings.

The idea being that we could start getting a concept of a trend without over-burdening the organizers.

Goal

Determine valid metrics for measuring meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. membership, participation, and engagement.

Metrics

  • Membership – Current number of people that belong to a local Meetup group.
  • Registration – How many members signed up for meeting
  • Participation – Actual attendance of meeting
  • Engagement – Could be how often organizers reach out to members or community???

Questions we still have:

  • What metrics does meetup provide?
  • Is there a list of meetup master list?
  • Is our goal to add to the membership, increase online discussion, or to increase in person attendance?
  • How do we get this information from the 393 groups on meetup?
  • How do we get the other 763 groups on meetup to report?
  • Do they work with other groups?

Questions for Meetup Organizers:

  • How big is the group’s membership?
  • How many meetings per year per group?
  • How many people sign up for a meetup?
  • Did you have a wait list for the meetup?
  • How many people actually show up to the meetup?

Contributors

  • Stephanie Brown
  • Gary Kuhlmann

#measuring-meetup-attendance, #wcatl-contributor-day