Here’s the thing about New Media Leaders… it can be whatever you want. When I first stumbled across the MediaLeaders.tv organization it was just 5 or 6 other cities, and I just emailed the guy in LA and told him I would like to organize one in Raleigh. I had never done anything like that before, but I figured what the hell?
I picked 4 friends who had skills that complimented mine. I choose a PR person, a long time marketing guy, a newly crowned social media specialist and a smart search marketing manager. We had no money, no plan and no venue with only about 2 weeks to put it all together.
We all met up for dinner, came up with a plan and then promoted the hell out of it.
We pulled in about 150 people and had a blast. We used a venue where the owner was happy to welcome in 150 people on a Tuesday night (obviously he gave us the venue for free). He offer a small amount of free food and the organizers ran a tab at the bar that magically disappeared at the end of the night.
No speeches, no presentations – just hardcore face-to-face IRL networking. Our big give-away was a genius idea from a friend of mine… we gave away a lunch with 3 local new media leaders.
We picked 3 local big wigs that normal people wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to have lunch with. We reached out to them and they loved the idea. We then picked 3 names at the event as the “winners”.
We talked to another local venue about hosting a free lunch for the 3 media leaders + the 3 winner + 1 of our organizers.
Every step of the way we Tweeted, Facebooked and blogged our way to a fun and successful event.
So don’t think of it as something you have to do alone, surround yourself with friends who will take some of the stress off you.
Want to host a New Media Leaders event in your city?