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 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!)
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.
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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