Intro to Classification

Localist offers several tools to help you classify your events. These include your Landing Pages (Places, Groups, & Departments), Filters, Keywords, and Tags — each of which serve a distinct purpose on your calendar.

Classification Puzzle

Before we break down each piece of your classification, lets review a sample event to identify all of the initial pieces:  

An organization called Cities for a Cure is hosting a holiday concert festival at the City Arena in the Inner Harbor to raise money. The event page needs to reflect that the concert will be only open to 21+ with ID’s shown, tickets are expensive but free parking is available and that doors will close at 7. Cities for a Cure would also like this event to feed into their homepage’s event widget.

  Here’s how these details should be entered in Localist:

• City Arena → Place Page
  • Where is the event hosted (address)?
• Cities for a Cure → Group Page
  • Who is hosting the event?
• Concert → Filter (Event Type)
  • What is the format of the event?
• 21+ → Filter (Audience)
  • Who can attend the event?
• Fundraiser → Filter (Topic)
  • What information is being covered during this event?
• $$$ → Filter (Cost)
  • How much does the event cost?
• Inner Harbor → Filter (Neighborhood)
  • Which neighborhood will the event take place (non-address specific)?
• Festival / Holiday → Tag
  • Short-term, temporary, and/or ultra-specific event details seen by the public.
• Homepagewidget → Keyword
  • Short-term, temporary, and/or ultra-specific event details seen only by search engines.
• Free Parking / Must show ID / Doors Close at 7 → Description or Custom Field
  • Event-specific description.

What's a Landing Page?

First and foremost, Landing Pages are your starting point for your platform's Classification (taxonomy). Landing Pages include Group Pages, Department Pages, and Place Pages – this powerful, yet flexible tool houses events by Location (Places) or Host (Groups/Departments) while providing all-important context to your Users. What kind of context, you say?

Landing pages provide your audience with:

1. A description:  This details what each location or host is all about
2. A photo:  Events can inherit this photo via the Photo Fallback Chain
3. A list of upcoming and recent Events:  So your Place, Group, or Department can shine even if they’re still planning an event
4. A newsfeed:  To show off each Place, Group, or Department’s clout
5. An inheritable map (Places):  So users know exactly where to go for an event and event planners don’t need to look up addresses

Once added to a platform, these Landing Pages roll neatly into separate, filterable directories (Place Types and Group Types) which limits clutter on your platform!

What's a Filter?

As users enter the calendar they often think “How do I get the calendar to show only the events I’m interested in?” Enter Filters. These 100% customizable text labels sit on the right side of your calendar to offer users a few quick ways to limit the events they see to a single topic that interested them.

Filters provide your audience…

The second most commonly used navigation tool on your platform – second only to the “All Events” button. Since Filters can be used for Place Pages and Group/Department Pages in addition to events, Filters are the perfect second step in organizing the calendar.

Filters and Administration

Keeping your filter list simple, self-explanatory, broad, and user-centric not only helps users find events, but it also helps event submitters quickly locate the best possible categories for their event. This limits the time it takes to submit an event and limits the possibility of missed categorization opportunities.

When to use Filters

Filters’ simplicity makes them a great quick-access, organizational tool as long as they’re user-centric. Not sure where to start? Check out our filter best practices to strategize the best possible uses.

What's a Community?

Does your organization have multiple or satellite locations outside of your current timezone? We've got you covered with Communities! A Community is another way to filter your events based on location. For instance, if your organization is located on the East Coast, but you have a chapter on the West Coast, the events for the West Coast Community will reflect their timezone. How does it work?

1. You'll need to contact Localist Support via support@concept3d.com to add your Community. It is not available via the Admin Dashboard.
2. Assign a Place Page to your Community.
3. Assign your Events to your Place Pages. The event will then populate the Community in which the Place is assigned.

What Are Tags and Keywords?

Tags and Keywords are free text labels that Event Managers, Editors, and Authors can add to an event. Unlike Landing Pages and Filters, those admins can create these on the fly. Tags and Keywords are functionally the same, EXCEPT Tags are visible on the public calendar whereas Keywords are only visible to search engines.

Tags and Keywords provide your audience with…

1. An ultra-specific way to classify events that may not otherwise make sense for Landing Pages or Filters
2. Boosted SEO
3. A tailored way to promote events for Channels and Widgets

Tags and Keywords and Administration

Tags and Keywords can ONLY be added by those that have access to the Localist Admin Dash (Event Managers, Event Editors, Event Authors), which helps keep them consistent throughout your platform. Admin permissions cannot be limited by Tags and Keywords.

When to use Tags and Keywords

Are you looking to create a Widget or Channel for an event series, annual festival, or administrative department? Since Tags and Keywords don’t clutter up your Filter list, you can get as specific with them as you like. Once you’ve set up your Landing Pages and Filters, use Tags and Keywords for any other labels your community may need.

Other ways to Promote events

There's so many other ways to organize and promote your events!

Using your calendar’s existing taxonomy, you can build Channels (customizable landing pages that live on your platform) or Widgets (customizable curated lists of events that can be embedded on external web pages).

While you shouldn’t think of these two tools as part of your taxonomy, they may influence your taxonomy a bit. For instance, you may create Tags and Keywords for the sole purpose of displaying events. In fact, you may use this solution instead of creating a Filter or Landing Page in order to keep your calendar’s taxonomy clean and organized.