Sponsoring the Ealing Tweetup

For about a year now I've been running the Ealing Tweetup. An informal social media networking event in West London that brings together a diverse range of (mainly) local business people, politicians, bloggers & journos, digital industry types and other interesting folks from many walks of life…  With live music - and sometimes even free pizza courtesy of the host, Tom at the Rose & Crown, the events are proving a great success with anything from thirty to over 200 attendees joining to meet fellow twitter users and expand their networks!  

What is becoming increasingly hard, however, is to find corporate sponsorship for the event. Even in these tough financial times, we have had companies willing to sponsor/donate money to provide a first drink at the bar or to pay for the band. But we cannot always go knocking at the same doors, so with the next Ealing tweetup now less than 5 weeks away and taking place on Thursday 1st March... I thought I would explain what any potential sponsor might get in return:

1. Association

The Ealing Tweetup is one of the most well-known and successful London Social Media events. Linking with the night automatically boosts an organisation's ‘social currency’ and builds awareness of their brand online via event Tweets and subsequent press releases. Previous sponsors have associated themselves with the event to improve their visibility in Ealing and with the wider community....and not just in Greater London, but also further afield (we've had attendees from East Anglia, Scotland and even Sau Paulo, Brazil).

With Social Media constantly growing in popularity and increasingly integrated with corporate marketing, PR and commercial targets, this is the ideal time to partner with Tweetup events.

2. Knowledge

Understanding and participating in Social Media can be quite daunting to the inexperienced. The Ealing Tweetup provides the ideal opportunity for a company marketers and managers to meet with a variety of practitioners, from in-house Social Media mangers to PR agency directors .... or even just normal average people who now follow, post and ‘retweet’ as part of their daily lives. From finding information on the latest blogging platform through to ways legitimate of building up your followers, attendees of all experience can learn something new.

3. Marketing visibility

Previous tweetups have been attended by journalists, bloggers, BBC presenters and senior political figures including the Deputy Mayor of London. Consequently it provides a fantastic vehicle for any marketer to promote their company. The sponsor has the opportunity to place banners alongside the band which are usually captured in photos and videos throughout the night; and then in the nature of Twitter, will be constantly posted online. The sponsor will get numerous mentions in blogs, online press postings and even local & regional newspapers.

4. Search Engine Optimisation assistance

Links are the currency of the World Wide Web, with search engines such as Google using them as the key indicator of your site's online gravitas. This means that when someone mentions your company in a post and link back to your website….. you can gain a better foothold on search engines. Therefore one of the many benefits of being a sponsor is the number of online mentions your company will receive in association with the Tweetup.