We are trying the 8 biggest social media sites and focusing on the one that performs the best for us out the gate. Will be trying Meetup and Linkedin at the same time and recording which one performs better for us. It should be interesting to see what works better for us, the modern online networking tool or the old fashioned way of meeting new people locally.
Meetup
When you sign up for Meetup it asks you a wide variety of interests in different categories. It's fun to pick all of your interests and unlike most b2b marketing I can feel free to pick whatever interests me. For example with Stumbleupon I only picked business options but with Meetup I feel like genuinely wanting to meet new people comes first and hopefully that organically turns into new clients. The first thing I want to do with Meetup is to search for groups near my home that I would like to join. Ideally I would like to join one group purely for fun, one b2b group and if I enjoy the meetup groups create my own down the road. I'm not sure if other local entrepreneurs in San Diego would want to start a wiffle ball league but it's an idea I've had for awhile that I'd like to try. I don't see any Meetup groups that I want to join right away but I'm going to check the site daily and see if anything catches my eye.
Here is the big b2b site we have yet to try. I tried Linkedin 5 or 6 years ago and probably still have an account but I was really turned off by how they did their email marketing. I'm ready to try them again and see if they've changed their ways. From what I've heard they are a much different and more useful site than they used to be. Right away I'm thinking that Linkedin might not be the best fit for us right away. It seems like it will be a good tool to keep in touch with business contacts but I don't really see how it's going to be a good fit for a new small business.
Conclusion
After our first month Linkedin is the clear winner and will move on. Linkedin feels like Facebook for adults and it's a great way to keep in touch with contacts. Meetup was never given a fair shot in this competition. The site seems great but I just simply don't have the time to join any groups right now. Once I have some spare time I look forward to actively joining Meetup groups but that will not be any time soon.