Listed on this page are resources to help you publicize your departmental event to your intended audiences.
This guidance featured is for you to use after determining what your event is, who it’s for, and other logistics. Having a clear idea of what your event is and who it is for will streamline promotion.
Ideally, you’ll want to begin publicizing your event several weeks before it happens—but if you only have a few days, there are tips for that, too.
Best practices for promoting your event
- To add your event, go to the calendar and click "Add New Events" to log in. Fill out the form with your event details and tag co-sponsoring units/departments. For more information on the fields to fill out, check out this guide.
- Once you submit your event in Content Hub, it will auto populate on the UI Events calendar, your website’s events list, and some other campus event feeds.
- If details for your event change, update the listing instead of creating a new one.
- Add any relevant articles or stories about your event to your website.
- Create a digital sign using a CLAS provided template and post it in your buildings/facilities.
- Share with the campus list-serve to have the sign posted in other buildings. You can reach all signage users by emailing its-signagecontent@list.uiowa.edu. If your content is more appropriate for specific programs rather than a general audience, you can contact departments directly.
- If you’re looking to create a poster, send an email, or write up messaging for your event, visit the various templates featured in the CLAS Marketing and Communications toolkit to make this process even easier.
- To use and edit the various templates, all you need is a free Canva account.
- Is this an event faculty and staff would be interested in? Have you reached out to them? Email them or tell them in faculty and staff meetings.
- Is this an event for students? Can faculty and instructors share the event with their students via email or through ICON and encourage them to attend? Have you considered asking faculty to provide an incentive for students to attend, such as extra credit or a related assignment if the event is relevant to the class? The earlier you coordinate this the more likely students would attend.
- Once you know your audience, you can determine if related departments might be interested in helping share your event with their faculty, staff, and/or students.
- Reach out and ask them to promote your event on their communication channels or collaborate to send an email or incentivize student attendance.
- If your event is geared toward faculty and/or staff, post on Facebook. If your event is geared toward students, post on Instagram.
- Consider posting on social media one to two weeks in advance with another post the week of, so your audience sees the event and can fit it into their schedules.
- Try to avoid posting at the last minute.
Only have a few days before your event?
Follow these steps to do the most with the time you have available:
- Make sure your event is added to the UI Events calendar
- Reach out to campus partners
- Send an email to the relevant audiences in your department
Other event support
If you’re looking for tips on how to determine your audience or logistics for your event before publicizing it, check out this guide from the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies.
If your event is a conference, please visit the CLAS policy website for guidance and financial policies on hosting an academic conference.
We’re here to help
The CLAS Marketing and Communications team strives to provide you with the resources you need to make your marketing work easier. This includes access to the CLAS Communicators Network, which meets regularly to provide marketing and communications training, sharing, and networking to our employees.
If you have questions or suggestions, or would like to join the CLAS Communicators Network, please email clas-marcom@uiowa.edu.