Most often it is a group of like minded people sharing information with the dues being used to benefit the group and pay for things such as renting a forum to speak at or bringing in national speakers that can teach additional material to the group.

I am new to this market and just starting to get more involved, but this one hosted by @Raphael Collazo has featured some really good guest speakers, https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Real-Estate-Networking-Meetup/events/271753368/.Feel free to reach out with any questions you have.

Being a guest speaker would be a great way to extend your efforts. 

On my long drive from Kansas City to Texas, I happened to listen to a TED talk on the subject of investment in Africa, in which the speaker alluded heavily to the real estate potential in South Africa.

At their monthly meetings, they host excellent speakers who talk about various real estate investing topics.

As part of the meetup, you get a chance to interact with like-minded real estate investors and listen to engaging speakers who talk about topics related to real estate investing.

As part of the meeting, we network with other like-minded investors and host speakers who talk about topics related to real estate investment.

@Elliot Holmes we do a twice monthly meetup, second thursday of the month is a social hour and fourth thursday of the month is an educational topic with a speaker

We didn't have a speaker since it was our first meeting in months and we all just caught up with each other. 

Dave's been a guest speaker at our mastermind group discussing 1031 exchanges in greater detail - I learned more on that subject with his one hour talk than in all the years I've been on BP.