To Pay or Not to pay..my dilemma in dealing with social media events.
If you’re interested in Social Media, how do you determine whether something is worth paying for or not? How do you quantify whether your $15 to $50 luncheons, parties, lectures and gatherings are going to yield interesting or even relevant information? Does it need to?
Do you simply go because you need to be seen? To be a real life presence to back up your virtual existence? In some ways yes. You do develop contacts this way and it can be very helpful. When you are first starting out and you have all but 7 friends that are following you how do you even begin? That’s when these social events might be worth paying out of pocket for. I’ve met incredible people, made friends and even developed deep meaningful friendships out of these events. So in this way the outcome completely outweighs the initial cost of paying.
It’s very different when you have your company to sponsor you, but for freelancers how do you justify the money you spend out of pocket for these events.
I ask this question out of simple curiosity, as I recently came upon a situation where I had this dilemma. So many events boast how this is the networking event of the year. What makes it that? The last time I went to this event it was so yawningly boring I left early. All I did was meet people who knew very little and I was pretty much pelted with questions the entire time. I hung out with people I already knew and all we did was talk about how annoying this event was. And why were we being charged $7 for bottled widmere? And why exactly did we pay to get in if we got two drink tickets and hummus dip? barn I’m out.
These seem like petty complaints to be sure, but if there’s no speaker why exactly are you charging me $40 when you’ve listed all these sponsors? If it was for charity? I get that, I’m all for paying for things when it goes to charity.
This isn’t about me being cheap or a curmudgeon. It’s hard to feel like I can justify the hundreds of dollars I spend each year on events when I don’t garner new knowledge. My purpose is for interaction in the real, and I can, and have done that in many different ways.
I do plenty of social events which are me paying for me, or are sponsored, really sponsored. So explain to me why I need to pay for an event which gives me so little but I am expected to go to? I equate this to paying cover to get into a club. Why? Why am I paying a cover? So I can buy over priced drinks and rescue my idiot friends with running away with some drunken dude-brah date rapists? The geisha doesn’t pay cover or babysit. So I may have to skip this one.
