can't invite "interested members" to join anymore!!

I can't invite "interested members" to join my Meetup anymore? Why can't I ask them to join, you may ask? Easy answer: Because the list jumbles all the names together regardless of interest. You've got interested in hiking, interested in books, interested in cats, interested in any number of things, all listed together, so it's basically a waste of time trying to invite members. It's dead-end option now, thanks to jumbling all the members together onto one list.

It didn't used to be like this. Meetup used to have individual "Interested in a Specific Meetup" lists that were truly helpful. Now, when I invite (possibly) interested members, it's a basically flip of the coin as to whether they really *are* going to be interested. Someone interested in cats won't want to be invited to a dogs meetup, someone interested in SAHM's meetups probably won't want to be invited to a singles/dating meetup, and so on.... how, exactly, are organizers supposed to know *which* Meetup these members are interested in so we can invite them to join our groups?

Brian,

From what I understand if I want to hear about Scrapbooking and Stay At Home Moms I would be listed under both. Basically every category they want to hear about is listed together. I think

Hey Brian,

I'm sorry for any confusion on this.

As Organizer, if you click the Invite Interested Meetup Members option in your Meetup's Promote page, you'll see a list of members that signed up to specifically hear when a Meetup starts under your Meetup's main topic and you'll have to option to contact them.

This has not changed. If a person is listed to hear about "Cat Meetups" then they signed up to hear about Cat Meetups.

The only option we've merged is the member's intro, so now instead of members having to manage tons of different intros for all of their Meetup in the Making lists, they only have write something general about themselves.

I hope this helps.


Lucette

Brian,

From what I understand if I want to hear about Scrapbooking and Stay At Home Moms I would be listed under both. Basically every category they want to hear about is listed together. I think

Ah....so, in other words, organizers have to *guess*, Is This Member a Who's Interested in Scrapbooking or Is This a Member Who's Interested in Stay at Home Moms? Not being able to figure out who would be interested in what, the "Invite Interested Meetup Members" helps the organizers...how, exactly?

Meetup staff: Will organizers ever get the interest-specific lists back?

I have only used the interested members list a couple times. I think it is a complete waste of time because of several things. Some of the things you mention are right on. My main objection is you can end up emailing the same people 20 times, there is nothing to differentiate between members you have and have not emailed before. I also do not like that you can't select ALL interested members at a single time and email them. The one by one makes for a very boring night; throw in confusing when you want to try and decipher how many times you email each person.

-Chris

Brian,

From what I understand if I want to hear about Scrapbooking and Stay At Home Moms I would be listed under both. Basically every category they want to hear about is listed together. I think

Ah....so, in other words, organizers have to *guess*, Is This Member a Who's Interested in Scrapbooking or Is This a Member Who's Interested in Stay at Home Moms? Not being able to figure out who would be interested in what, the "Invite Interested Meetup Members" helps the organizers...how, exactly?

Meetup staff: Will organizers ever get the interest-specific lists back?

I think the way it works is if your on your scrapbooking page and click the link you get a list of scrapbooking members

If you click while on your Stay at home moms page you get stay at home moms members.

Steve

If you click on invite interested members to join, the ones you see have requested to hear about your type of meetup...it doesn't matter what else you see that they are interested in, the fact that you see them means that they are interested in your type of meet up...so it shouldn't change anything other than you now get a peek into what else that person is interested in, which can help you get to know them better before they ever even join your group...

Ah....so, in other words, organizers have to *guess*, Is This Member a Who's Interested in Scrapbooking or Is This a Member Who's Interested in Stay at Home Moms? Not being able to figure out who would be interested in what, the "Invite Interested Meetup Members" helps the organizers...how, exactly?

Meetup staff: Will organizers ever get the interest-specific lists back?

sorry dude, i can't figure out what the heck you're talking about. when i click on "email people who are interested", i get a page with a heading that says "here are some other people who are interested in adventures!" what's to guess??

what's funny, is that some of them have comments like "i want these local meetups because i have been a vegetarian for a few years" and "am new to knitting and can't wait to meet other people to knit with!"

what's unfortunate is that a LOT of these folks have realized how stupid that is, so they don't write anything. which means that it's harder to determine whether or not they'd be a good fit for your group.

what's cool is that it looks like the page is updated for "recent activity" since i always appear at the top of these lists (and i belong to a lot of them LOL)

Chris's suggestions about keeping track is a good one. a lot of those folks are members of my group already, and when you have a lot of people it is a big pain to have to check the groups they belong to to see if they're a member. and if they have their memberships hidden, you have to search (oops, wrong, not easy like search, pain in the ass like page through) your own 80 million page lists!!! omg i sooo do not have time for that!!!!!!

Ah....so, in other words, organizers have to *guess*, Is This Member a Who's Interested in Scrapbooking or Is This a Member Who's Interested in Stay at Home Moms? Not being able to figure out who would be interested in what, the "Invite Interested Meetup Members" helps the organizers...how, exactly?

Meetup staff: Will organizers ever get the interest-specific lists back?

sorry dude, i can't figure out what the heck you're talking about. when i click on "email people who are interested", i get a page with a heading that says "here are some other people who are interested in adventures!" what's to guess??

what's funny, is that some of them have comments like "i want these local meetups because i have been a vegetarian for a few years" and "am new to knitting and can't wait to meet other people to knit with!"

And what's really funny is that, if I do a VEGETARIAN group but someone on the "Interested In a Meetup" list says they're interested in KNITTING or BOOKS or HIKING, guess what? I am not going to invite that person to my Meetup group. Not if I don't think they belong on the list.

What I'm talking about is, if there any comments on the "Interested in a Meetup" that pertain to a different group entirely (such as the example you give, so thanks for the example), the reasonable organizer would question whether that person belongs on the list and not invite that member. That's what I'm talking about. I don't invite members who aren't interested in a topic. If their comment clearly state they're not interested in a particular topic? Just because they're on the "Interested in Something Else" list? If someone posted a comment that they're new to knitting, those comments don't belong on a no-knitting interest list. It's a lose-lose situation for all parties involved: the organizer won't invite the member, and the member will never get invited because their comment pertains to an entirely unrelated group.

Is that clear enough for you?

Brian,

You are normally pretty clear and straightforward in your posts, but you are so confusing me!

When you click on "email people who are interested" from your meetup group...the list you see are people who have selected that they ARE interested in YOUR type of meetup group, regardless of if it says they are also interested in a vegetarian group, or knitting, or books or hiking...THAT part is irrelevant...they wouldn't show up at ALL to you, if they had not selected that they were interested in YOUR TYPE of meetup group, whichever "topic" that is that you run.

So even if I see "interested in knitting" or something like that, I know the reason I'm seeing them is because they've also selected that they are interested in a singles group (regardless of if they actually write about that or not). They selected that they are interested, and that's why I'm seeing them, so of course I'll invite them to join (if I used that invite interested members feature, which I actually don't.)

It's a WIN WIN situation for all parties involved...they've selected that they are interested in a group....you can see them.....you invite them, they get invited to a group they've selected that they are interested in...and as a benefit, you can see what ELSE they are interested in, which helps you get to know your members better before ever even saying HI to them!

You say you don't invite members who aren't interested in a topic...but if they weren't interested in your topic, you wouldn't even SEE them appear when you click on the invitation feature. So the only ones are you are seeing ARE the ones who are INTERESTED in your EXACT TOPIC - so why would you NOT invite them?