Promoting Your Localist Events

Launching your Localist platform is just the beginning! It's now time to get to work promoting your events and the features your platform has to offer your community.

What to Keep In Mind

It won't happen overnight

You will not see instant SEO success by virtue of launching Localist. You need to make sure you commit to getting your platform in front of your audience and to adding fresh content as much as possible to establish relevancy.

Create spaces for belonging

If you need buy-in from other units, organizations or stakeholders then make sure there is a direct line from their end to Localist through your Classifications and Channels. Just saying "this platform is for you" will not go as far as showing them that there is a dedicated corner for their needs!

Community Evolution

With each new season, semester or year, comes your chance to grow your community. Use these yearly milestones as key moments to connect new members of your audience with your platform and event offerings.

Captive vs. Competitive Audiences

Your promotion needs and the level of commitment required may vary depending on the age of your organization and how unique your content is. For example, events hosted by campus groups are only available on a school's Localist platform, while a 5k race in a city may be posted on dozens of local websites.

Events are social (media)

Promote your platform alongside other social media platforms! For example, if you have space dedicated to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter icons, consider adding a unique icon that brings your audience directly to Localist.

Community Influencers

Get creative with pulling in trusted members of your community to help get the word out! "Influencers" can be anyone from a student leader to a well known local fundraiser, or from a respected thought leader to an athlete.

Promotion in Practice

Now that you're in the promotion mindset, you can start to pull various levers both inside and outside of your Localist platform: 

Permanent Promotion

1. One click access from your website’s homepage

How quickly can the average user find the events calendar?  The simplest way to make sure events are seen is to ensure your audience can intuitively navigate to your platform. 

• Best Practice: Have an entire section of your homepage dedicated to events—a Localist Widget would be perfect for this (see below for more details)!
• Recommended: Have a top level navigation link.
• Satisfactory: Have a secondary link in a menu.
• Not Recommended: Needing 2+ clicks to find events.

2. Once click access from landing pages

How quickly can the average user find specific subsets of events?  When using Widgets throughout your website, users can discover events passively in their own time and on their own path if they are not actively looking. Here’s some ideas:

• Do you have a landing page that highlights news? → Include an upcoming events Widget alongside this content. 
• Do you have landing pages that align with your Event Types? → Include a Widget spotlighting exhibitions.
• Do you have landing pages that align with your Target Audiences? → Include a Widget for alumni.
• Do you have landing pages that align with your Topics? → Include a Widget promoting sustainability.

Ongoing Promotion

1. Newsletters

How often are you including event content in your newsletters?  Like placing Widgets on landing pages alongside other content, newsletters are an excellent medium for promoting your events with other notable content. Depending on the newsletter, promoting events could look like:

• A section with events listed, 
• A call out to a related event, 
• Or a general call-to-action for the events calendar 

  Are you providing an events newsletter?  If you aren’t already providing a newsletter that highlights events then we’ve got you covered with our newsletter tool, Bulletin. Check out our Bulletin LocaList to learn more about this feature. Users can also get a personalized list of events in their inboxes weekly with Digest! We highly recommend proactively educating and encouraging your community to use this tool.

2. News articles/blogs

How often are you including event content in your articles/blogs?  In a similar vein, look for opportunities to highlight or drive traffic to your events or platform when publishing news articles and blogs. 

• If your article is about a recent event then be sure to include a call-to-action to find more upcoming events.
• If your article is of a particular theme, such as wellness, highlight upcoming events that align with the initiative like group fitness events.

3. Social media

How often are events highlighted on social media? Posting consistently about events on social media doesn’t mean you’ll sound like a broken record. Beyond periodically plugging the events calendar in its entirety, you can highlight the diversity of your events and connect with your audience by posting about: 

• Important one-off events, like a conference or festival,
• A unique series, like a lecture or exhibition 
• Topical efforts, like sustainability or outdoor recreation,
• Or thematic events, like Halloween or 4th of July

Bonus! You can also utilize our convenient Event Promotion tool to post events to social media directly from the Localist Admin Add Event form.

4. Digital signage

Are you using digital signage as a promotional tool? If you’re already utilizing digital signage—TVs, digital billboards, video walls etc.— then you should consider adding events here too! Using the same strategies as above, look for ways to promote the entire calendar, an individual event, or a special series. 

5. Include events in printed collateral

Are you providing printed collateral to your community? Last, but not least, don’t forget about any printed materials your organization may circulate. Think of flyers, brochures, playbills, campus newspapers, table-top ads etc. and apply the same promotional efforts listed above for your events.

Individual Events

1. Sponsored Events

Localist’s Sponsored feature is a soft endorsement of your events. When you Sponsor an event it gets a boost in the trending algorithm, which sends it straight to the top of the trending list. 

2. Featured Events

Featured Events will display in a carousel at the very top of your homepage, which means they will be easily discoverable. You can flag an infinite number of Featured Events, so there’s endless opportunity for your users to find the most intriguing events.  

Multiple Events

1. Tags

The simplest way to promote a unique series is to create a Tag, such as ‘Summer 2022’, which will pull events into a centralized location on your calendar. To get to this centralized location, your users will just need to click the Tag on the Event Details Page. 

2. Homepage Tab

You can also create multiple tabs on your homepage to highlight events. You can easily pull events into the tab using existing classifications or a date range. 

3. Featured Tab

Adding a new tab to your Featured Carousel will showcase some of your most exciting events. Say for example, your organization is hosting a charity concert series. You could make a ‘Charity Concerts’ tab and pull those events into the Featured Carousel. 

4. Channels

If you’re hosting a highly anticipated lecture series you can pull events into a Channel to show them off to your community. They can adopt their own unique CSS and layout to flaunt any brand aesthetic. Additionally, Channels have their own custom URL, which means you can promote these events anywhere you’d like.