What's in it for them?

Right now, this is the only stream of income that we have. And it goes straight from the sponsor to our hosts. I think that sponsorship is one legitimate way for us to raise money to support what we're doing, but I don't want to become totally reliant on it. In addition, we might be thinking more broadly of partnerships that support both parties' needs.

The sorts of questions I get asked when raising money for Friday meetups are:

How many people come?

We regularly have between 20 and 40 people signing up. Not everyone who comes signs up. Not everyone who comes stays for the full three hours so while there's only room for about 35-40 people we have had a "turnover" of more like 50 or so on the busiest days.

What sorts of people come?

All sorts. Freelance bloggers, podcasters, social media consultants, mobile marketing people, digital agency people, government web people, web startups, people from established media (BBC, C4, Guardian), social media newbies, management consultants, event organisers, developers,

What do they talk about?

Well my standard (flippant) answer to this is "It's none of my business (unless they've been talking to me)" but it's important to remember that the conversations aren't structured or predefined, they're very dependent on who's there and what they want to talk about, it's like a café - durrrr. (Sorry, don't know why this question gets my back up so much!)

Refreshments?

We get fresh coffee - cappuccino, latte or black coffee to your taste and wonderful, fresh croissants with butter and a selection of jam, all served with a smile from the friendly team at the Coach and Horses (which is our current regular Friday venue).

What's in it for the sponsor?

It's a great place to meet like-minded folk, talk to them (but no hard-sell thanks) about your product or service. It's also a great audience to organise a discussion group around a specific business topic close to your heart, run a user-testing session or focus group, or a series of any of these. And of course your team are welcome to join us too to find out more about our digital and social media world in a very relaxed atmosphere. Somehow the vibe is different when there's no beer involved! It's a collaborative, supportive, friendly, open community interested in hanging out with folks who share similar values. We also have big screens available to us so it's not unfeasible for us to do a film screening or something more screen-based if that fitted the bill. We'd have to check if that cost any extra though as we've not done it yet.

In addition, a sponsor will get thanks and coverage on the Tuttle Club blog as well as here on the wiki, and by arrangement podcasts and videocasts can also be arranged (at a reasonable cost).

What's the cost?

We look for between £300 and £500 a week, dependent on what extras the sponsors need out of the morning. We're also keen to work on a monthly or quarterly sponsorship which helps us plan ahead a bit more.

I'd like to help but sponsorship is not right for me right now. What can I do?

You can also make a donation to the fund via paypal to help keep us going. Every little counts and we really appreciate you taking the trouble to make a donation.

I'd like to have some fuller answers for people - I have in mind that we might have a one-pager to give to people. However, I also think it's important that if people want to sponsor us they have to understand that participation is part of the deal - if you want to support the community, you can't do it from outside, you have to come and join in to get the real benefit.

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Sponsors Testimonial from Qype.com

Being an early supporter of the Social media Club was very rewarding for Qype.

SMC attendees were actively curious about Qype and we were able to get immediate and honest feedback on the site.

The responses we got were far more valuable than any expensive, contrived focus group environment.

The SMC is a very concentrated and accessible group. In two weeks we made dozens of important contacts and relationships that may have otherwise taken months to create.

The extended network which exists outside the immediate SMC community is diverse, friendly and intelligent.

Being able to contribute to the various conversations around social media in London has directly influenced Qype's development.

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Luke Razzell came up with this idea too - for me it belongs more in the consulting field but I'll leave it here for now.

Social consulting

Concept

SMC attendees who work as consultants may be able to persuade their social-media friendly clients to sponsor a SMC, in exchange for which they get to use the 2nd floor space with the consultant as appropriate. The unique value proposition to the client is that they get to lure other SMC people upstairs for their nefarious ends. Then if we're excited by what they're up to, we'll probably shoot our mouths on and, whoops, free PR for said company.

Practicalities

We could put a calendar up on the wiki, or link to one, and individual consultants could book in clients directly. So Lloyd doesn't have to do all the work, as he does at the moment. We need to think about responsibility for making sure client follows through and pays up, though—would the client deal directly with Alastair, or would it go through the consultant.

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>Discussion about the SMC sponsorship proposition

(Please add new thoughts, ideas, comments, feedback etc to the bottom of this little bit of the wiki)

[hello Lloyd & the SMC crew - I volunteer to work closely with anyone else interested in this bit of the 'things to do'. I'm back in action w/c 21/4 and will pull together a few more thoughts and leave them here ahead of the SMC that Friday for discussion. I think the one pager for the who, what, where, why, etc should be done first to help secure sponsors for the current SMC format, as well as a more in-depth ROI focused proposal for a 'big' sponsor or sponsors further down the line. It's key that whatever happens sponsorship-wise though, the spirit of the SMC isn't overpowered and the sponsor is really well suited to what everyone wants to do - as I'm sure everyone will agree ;) Jonathan - @jopkins ]

[As a potential sponsor I would like to see much more on the different levels of sponsorship you can come in at. You have a blanket price at the moment which isn't really that great to companies that have different needs. If we sponsored something at Tuttle we would be "preaching to the converted" as virtually everyone there has MOO cards - which is great and we absolutely love you guys for it - but I'd like to see how we could reach Tuttler's friends & families & their clients.

There may be more companies interested in just coming in with "membership offers" rather than sponsoring a whole morning.

I fully understand you saying that people need to "join in to get the real benefit", even though I can't go to Fridays I see many of you at other events and again I'd like to see more things at evenings as you'd then be more likely to get some companies coming on board who can't afford to take a morning off work for something they don't quite understand.

Bascially, I think I'm saying you need greater flexibility of package - Cheers Mecca from MOO.com]

SMC in the evenings sounds like an idea. I would like to attend every Friday morning but can't because of other commitments. Having an evening option as well as Friday mornings would give more flexbility and allow SMC to reach new people, which seems like a good thing. Social media (and SMC, of course) has the potential to change things for the better and the best way to do that is to start mixing with people who don't know what it's about!

I'd like to see themed evening events done in a way that would bring in people beyond the usual crowd - make them a showcase for SMCs musicians, for example. That would be attractive to sponsors like Moo. But for them to be successful you'd need to be clear about what SMC stood for and what it was trying to do that made it different from other social networks. Maybe that's a conversation we need to have - what direction is SMC heading in and what are we trying to do? pippa@ministryoflove.co.uk

Good ideas. Evening SMCs would definitely help in reaching a wider crowd beyond the 'freeformers' of the SMC that find it easier to make time on a Friday morning. Mecca - would be great to know if you had anything in mind re taking it beyond reaching Tuttlers themselves. I've been thinking about all sort of ways we could help SMC help itself through its members (eg blog badges, discounts etc) and it would be good to get as much input as possible from across the board.

The other thing I think SMC could do is work out a way of illustrating and securing sponsorship using social media. Some text on a wiki isn't that inspiring for me (and I have a pretty good idea about what SMC is about ;)) Rob said he wasn't up for another website but I actually think a bit more of a slick online presence is needed - esp. as larger non-start-up brands are sought after. Remember though this is WIP so there's still lots to do and talk about. Jonathan - @jopkins