Event aggregators: Not so great without support

I wrote about event aggregators here and here a while ago. In those posts, I wrote about using event aggregators to keep an eye out for speaking opportunities for your clients. Recently, I had an opportunity to create entries on these services on behalf of a nationally well-known client. The goal was to make people aware of the event and encourage them to attend or, at the very least, click through to a special website the client had set up.

The results? Very, very disappointing.

What I learned
What was the quote about an unexamined life? Anyway, I examine a LOT. After creating an entry for our client’s event on every aggregator I mentioned in those other posts — a process that only took a couple of hours — I sat back and watched…but activity failed to pick up.

So the “learnings”? First, these sites really are geared to business or industry conventions, not fun & free consumer events. Second, if your event isn’t happening in a major city — and ours wasn’t — you’re not going to get any views. Finally, it would probably be a good idea to pick an aggregator site and link to it in your press release.

The good news
A couple of the aggregators — Meetup and Upcoming for example — impressed me with their range of options. Integration with Flickr was a plus and saved me the bother of having to find and upload photos, too.

Bottom line
I’m not going to bother with these services again unless the event is in a big city — seriously big, like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Boston. Even then I would stop and consider it — the two hours expended there, could they be put to better use for my client elsewhere?