Promoting Your Event Some Ideas

Promoting your event – some ideas

Events of all types can be promoted using a combination of personal invites and more general announcements, depending on what is appropriate for your individual case. The following are meant as suggestions and may not be relevant for all situations.

If you want to discuss your approach, contact Amy Ryall [email protected] 29709

 To ensure a good turn-out, invite as many people as possible. As a general rule, you can invite at least twice as many people as you can accommodate.  Use a combination of personal invites, mail merge emails and more general promotion via social media, what’s on pages and University announce messages.

A note about personal invites Inviting people individually, with an email that you’ve composed especially for them, can be an effective way of encouraging them to come to your event. If you have invested the time in writing to them personally, they are more likely to invest their time in attending something, than if you include them in a generic invite. They may also think that it’s something they should be interested in as you’ve targeted them specifically for an invite, which can also play a role in encouraging them to come. This may mean they see it as a privilege to be invited, rather that something else to fill up their calendar. Obviously it’s not practical to invite a large number of people in this way, but thinking about who you really want to attend and using this method for those people can reward you with a higher attendance.

 Invite people as a way of letting them know about your project, even if you don’t think they’ll come.  Use the University Announce message system to promote to the Faculty or University, staff and students. These messages can be filtered so you can send to as many or few staff and students as you like. https://www.shef.ac.uk/targetedannouncement/user/login.do  Social media is a good way of spreading the word – tag people/organisations you think might be interested to encourage them to retweet/share information  Contact the media team early to give them a chance to circulate press releases (contact details below)

A note about press The University press team work to specific guidelines as to what is considered to be newsworthy, so it’s useful to contact them at an early stage in your project to ascertain whether there is any potential for them to support you in gaining media coverage, either for your project as a whole or for specific events. Media coverage is not usually used to promote events, more to report on them so it might be that a press release generates press interest to cover the story rather than help to promote it. More details of the University’s media guidelines and how the Media Team can help are here https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/media-toolkit

 Use the What’s On, University diary and Faculty Calendar to register events (see links below)  Invite those in the University Senior Management team (via their PAs, details below) – even if they can’t come, it may register your project with them.  Posters are useful to put up around the University and beyond  Leaflets/postcards are reasonably cheap to produce  Distribution of leaflets, postcards and posters, both in and around the University can be done by student ambassadors (pay at Grade 2.1, talk to your Departmental office about contacting ambassadors)  Don’t underestimate the importance of refreshments. People may be more encouraged to come if they see it as a pleasant social opportunity, rather than a chore.  Consider the timing of your event. After work events at the University can catch people on their way home who might not otherwise come.  An Eventbrite (www.eventbrite.co.uk) registration page can help to give you an idea of numbers, which is particularly important if you’re providing refreshments. It will also give you a weblink that you can use on social media to give more details about the project and remind those that have registered that the event is imminent.

A note about timing

Promoting your event is all about timing and building in sufficient time in your plans to design and print posters, promote on social media, tell the University about your event and send out invitations. Below is a general timeline for a medium-sized event or launch which might help you think about how you structure activity. Obviously, timescales do vary, but one of the most common mistakes with projects is to start thinking about the promotion of events too late, resulting in poor attendance because people just didn’t know about it in time.

Three months in advance  Decide on a date for your event/launch  Send out personal invites to any ‘important people with very busy diaries’ like the VC, PVCs and their external equivalents.  If you’re having printed material designed, start the ball rolling with this – contact designers, talk to them about what you want, and agree a timescale for content and printing.  Employ student ambassadors for later distribution dates

Two months in advance  Send further personal invites to those you haven’t already invited and to Faculty networking lists and other external partners  Print any print material so that it’s ready to go when you need it.  Start to distribute print materials, posters etc  Start to talk about your event on social media  Send out a press release, either yourself, or contact the University press team to help.  Employ student ambassadors to help on the day of the event (if you need them, possibly to welcome guests, direct them to facilities, refreshments etc)

Six weeks in advance  Compose an announce message to the University and/or a Faculty email to extend the invitation to colleagues. You should send announce messages three working days before you want them to go out.  Continue to promote via social media, using your eventbrite/web page links to highlight what it is that you’re doing and how to register to come.

Three weeks in advance  Redistribute posters and flyers to remind people that your event is coming up  Continue to promote via social media  If registered numbers are low, send an further announce message (don’t bill it as a reminder as announce won’t usually accept messages that are reminders of events that they’ve already send messages about)

One week in advance  Send ‘looking forward to seeing you next week’ reminder emails to those you personally invited and have agreed to come.  Continue to promote on social media On the day  Signpost your event well, from the outside of buildings as well as inside. This is particularly important if you are expecting external guests who may not know the university.  Send a final reminder Faculty email, particularly if your event is straight after work hours. Emphasise that you don’t need to have registered to pop in.  Sort out student ambassador posts – welcoming guests and being ‘floating helpers’ can free you up to talk to people about your project leaving them to organise practicalities for people. They can also give out postcards for guests to take away – a reminder of the project and any weblinks, ways to get involved etc.

Useful contacts/links

Faculty external networking list, contacts Amy Ryall, External Engagement Projects Officer with other organisations in the city, Arts  [email protected] Enterprise social media, general advice 29709 Faculty calendar Clare Mills, HRI Co-ordinator [email protected] 29890 Promoting events to schools Linda Billam, Schools Outreach Support Officer [email protected] 29713

University social media Andrew Twist, Social and Digital Media Co-ordinator [email protected] 29853 Media team, help promoting your event Hannah Postles, Media Relations Officer via local and national media [email protected] 21046 Advice for promoting events via social http://www.shef.ac.uk/corporateaffairs/socialmedia media Submitting event information to the www.sheffield.ac.uk/whatson/submiteventinfo University What’s On calendar (public) Submitting event information to the www.sheffield.ac.uk/diaryofevents University diary (internal) University announce system – for http://www.shef.ac.uk/cics/myannounce messages to the whole University, staff and students. Can also be tailored to more specific groups Keith Burnett, Vice Chancellor Rachel Frith [email protected] Richard Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Rita Saddler Research and Innovation [email protected] Paul White, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Nicola Quinn Learning and Teaching [email protected] Nick Agarwal, Head of Corporate Angela Harvey-Watson Services [email protected] Jackie Labbe, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Sue Hubbard Faculty of Arts and Humanities [email protected] Gill Valentine, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Gaynor Hague Faculty of Social Sciences [email protected]

Some relevant Facebook pages/Twitter accounts (not exhaustive)

Arts Enterprise https://www.facebook.com/artsenterprisesheffield @Arts_Enterprise University of Sheffield https://www.facebook.com/theuniversityofsheffield @sheffielduni Dept of History https://www.facebook.com/HistorySheffield @unishefhistory School of English https://www.facebook.com/UosSchoolOfEnglish @SheffEnglish School of Languages and Cultures https://www.facebook.com/LanguagesSheffield Dept of Germanic Studies @SheffGermanic Dept of French @FrenchSheffield Dept of Philosophy https://www.facebook.com/pages/Department-of- Philosophy-University-of-Sheffield/157219531002009? sk=timeline Dept of Archaeology https://www.facebook.com/groups/160564570652323/ Biblical Studies @UniShefReligion Dept of Music https://www.facebook.com/tuosmusic @tuosmusic University What’s On @SheffUniWhatsOn Sheffield What’s On @whatsonsheffield Off the Shelf festival https://www.facebook.com/OffTheShelf @otsfestival Music in the Round festival https://www.facebook.com/musicintheround @MusicintheRound Sheffield What’s On @whatsonsheffield Sensoria Festival (Music, Film and @SensoriaFest Digital) Showroom Cinema https://www.facebook.com/showroomcinema @showroomcinema Museums Sheffield https://www.facebook.com/Museums.Sheffield @MuseumSheffield Our Favourite Places https://www.facebook.com/ourfaveplaces @faveplaces Social Sheffield @socialsheffield