Using Your Event Wristbands for Guerilla Marketing

Sure, it’s sneaky, but that’s the point. When you can get your name, logo, and message under the radar of today’s media-savvy consumer with a tiny and unexpected image, in a tiny and unexpected place, you’ve accomplished more than the most expensive ad campaign often does. Guerilla marketing makes sense and saves money, and your customizable Event Wristbands, used correctly, fill that need for you. Turn a basic security device into a stealth marketing tools for your company or organization. Paying close attention to the quality of the wristbands as well as their design can showcase your company or organization to those who aren’t event attending your event.

Designing

In many cases, your guests will wear your Event Wristbands outside your event, particularly if your event span multiple days and they choose to eat something that wasn’t prepared in a convention hall. Remember, if you’ve taken the trouble to create an interesting wristband and branded the festival effectively, some guests will continue to wear that paper bracelet for some days afterward; it becomes a status symbol, signifying that they were there, at the party of the century.

So, you want to be sure to prominently feature your company or organization’s logo, where everyone can see it. Add other pertinent information such as your website and tagline, something that allows the viewing public to learn a little more about your services. Eye-catching colors help make your wristbands noticeable, and the design should be something eye-catching, too, so that passersby and casual observers can’t help but see. Beyond this, your Event Wristbands should be made of a durable, waterproof material, such as DuPont Tyvek, that will withstand the wear and use of those attending your event. Paying mind to these basic principles can directly affect the success of this built-in advertising.

At Your Event

If you offer multiple layers of access at your event, color-coded wristbands become instant status symbols. While you’re keeping your event secure and organized, you’re also offering subtle suggestions to the crowd that they could be experiencing more: special events and extra perks, available for just a little more money. Offer the ability to upgrade at any time, or just remind people to plan ahead they can be VIPs next year. If a certain colored wristband offers access to private parties, VIP lounges, better food, or meet and greets with featured speakers or artists, it’s easy for your staff to see who belongs where, and it’s easy for your guests to see who’s getting the celebrity treatment. If it’s a corporate event, those special wristbands may motivate some staff to work harder in the hopes of achieving more privileges next year.

Exposure

Durable Event Wristbands provide extra publicity for multi-day events. Your participants will wear them for the duration of the event, advertising your organization to everyone who sets foot near that venue. Many guests will probably leave the venue, if only to get some better coffee or pick up some necessities at the drug store, providing you with extra exposure. When the public begins to see many people wearing these colorful paper bracelets around town, they’re bound to ask what’s going on. Remember, for stealth marketing, the most successful wristbands will be those with eye-catching colors and designs. For high-profile and trendy events, your wristbands may turn into instantly recognizable symbols, identifying who was there, and encouraging those who weren’t to buy tickets for your next event.

For added exposure, give your guests a reason to step outside the event. Partner with local businesses to offer coupons in conjunction with the event that tempt people to spend a little more, or, negotiate with these businesses to let the wristband itself serve as the coupon. Provide a list of shops where flashing that bracelet gets them a discount. Another way to leverage to power of the Event Wristband is to organize a march, vigil, or other outdoor activity. When confronted with masses of folks, all wearing the same colorful wristband, the locals will start asking questions, and your marketing efforts start to pay off.

Wristbands are Better than Tickets

Tickets are silent. Once the stub is torn away, the ticket ends up in a pocket, only to be removed if there is a dispute over seating, or if your guest enjoyed your event so much they decide to display the stub on a mirror, cork board, or refrigerator. Do you want to restrict the viewing of your great design work to the person collecting tickets? Customized, Event Wristbands provide valuable, subtle exposure for your business, event, or organization: an instant and functional guerrilla marketing tool.

Consider quality, custom-designed Event Wristbands for your company or organization’s next event in addition to, or in place of tickets. They help with organization and security, and provide an inherent marketing tool while showcasing the status of individuals within your company or organization. This will make the event efficient and navigable to guests who desire to network with others in their field, or who share their interests. Event wristbands make your next event special, with the added bonus of marketability.

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Wristband Reminders

Consider the Event Wristband, a thin Tyvek thread that connects your organization and your supporters. When your annual fundraising event is over, how do you stay connected with your attendees? You want to keep your cause on their radar throughout the year, and you want them to return with enthusiasm when the time comes to host your event again. You may stay in contact with your guests through personal interactions, direct mailers, newsletters and email updates, but these are only effective if you've done the work to build goodwill with your patrons from the beginning.

How do your patrons stay connected with your cause? Do they remember the reason for the event once the last band has left the stage and the kettle corn has gone cold? Does your event or cause come up in casual conversation? Are your patrons left with positive reminders of the big day that they can turn to once it's done? Will they keep their Event Wristbands to remind themselves of the wonderful time they had at your past event?

While planning the actual event is important, it's just as important to consider what happens afterward. Helping your guests create positive memories is necessary to growing your event over time, and your Event Wristbands can be part of those memories.

Start with your Event

What keeps your guests buying event tickets year after year? First and foremost, you know how to put on a great occasion! It's well-planned and well-executed, for a worthy cause, and provides your guests with the opportunity to create memories will last forever. 

Guests who return have strong associations with your event.  It's already special to them. Perhaps a married couple wearing your carnival wristbands at this year's celebration met on your midway at a past one, and they return to reclaim the happy feeling of that day, and to collect a new wristband to add to their memory book. Maybe your neighborhood picnic has become someone's family tradition or your annual art fair has become a festive occasion the whole community looks forward to and plans around. Last year's wristband may remind them to buy this year's tickets.

New attendees are experiencing your annual fundraising event for the first time. They may already feel strongly about your cause, but it's just as likely they were drawn to your event not by the cause but by the activities you have to offer.  Maybe they don't know much about the women's shelter you're fundraiser is benefiting, but you've booked a band they really want to see. Your goal is to show them a great time that they will connect with your charity in the years that follow. From the moment they don their admission wristbands and walk through the gates, you have their attention. Make good use of it!

Provide Opportunities for Memories

Don't miss any opportunity to help your guests create strong, lasting memories.  From the moment you plan your promotion through the day of your event, you can lay the groundwork to keep your cause in your guest's hearts and minds through the months and years to come. Every time and in every way you interact with your patrons you sculpt how they perceive your cause.

Start by choosing collateral appropriate to your audience. The right images and language can draw the attention of your patrons and sustain it for a long time. Before your fundraiser, you can advertise using well-designed posters and flyers or direct mailers such as invitations and postcards.  During your event maintain the same branding on your tickets, admission wristbands, and other collateral.

Custom tickets work well for crowd management, but custom event wristbands are also quite useful. Patrons wear these from the moment they walk through your gate until after they leave. Different color wristbands can help you quickly discern the ages of guests for drink concessions or tell who has access to which activities. Most importantly they serve as constant reminders for the guest themselves. They need only to catch a glimpse of their wrists to remember the reason for the day. When they leave the event, admission wristbands can also be the cause of conversation and questions helping you drum up interest in your cause by word of mouth.

Something to Hold Onto

After your fundraising event, your guests will be left with many strong memories of the time they spent there. The collateral they take with them can help serve as a reminder of your day. Along with the pictures they might take, your guests will also have your branded tickets and event wristbands to help evoke a sense of nostalgia. When these are branded with the design of your event, they become souvenirs of the wonderful time they had and reminders of the cause you hope to promote.

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            From print to radio, from television to the internet, the medium for selling event tickets seems to be ever evolving. While the internet appears to be the frontier of the future, the focus has shifted from traditional web advertising. Promoting your event tickets through a web site is still essential, yes, but now it’s a part of a larger movement, that of social media marketing.

            Aside from being fairly easy to implement, social media marketing is also extremely inexpensive.  No matter the cost, though, you want to get a return on your investment, be it money or time. Here are a few aspects to focus on when using social media marketing to sell your event tickets:

·      Frequency

·      Interaction

·      Quantity vs. Quality

·      Integration

These four items are key to being successful as you jump into the world of social media.

Like Clockwork

            Part of the appeal of using social media platforms for marketing is the frequency with which you can send out your message. Web users are constantly looking for new information, and sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter allow you to give them that information. You need to mention your event tickets as frequently as possible, so your promotion doesn’t get lost in the constant information stream.

            Remember, all news is important in the social media world.  If you’ve just designed your event tickets, mention it online. Even if you’ve just started considering what your event tickets should look like, bring that up. Frequent updates engage your audience and make the process more personal, no matter how tiny the detail might be.           

A Part of the Team

            The internet allows you to interact with your audience like no other medium and social media sites take this to the next level.  That germ of an idea for the design of your event tickets? See what your audience thinks. Invite them into the process. You don’t have to listen to their suggestions; you just have to ask for them. The simple act of listening to your audience will draw them in.

            Get them talking. Allow comments on your posts on sites like Blogger and WordPress. Create a posting board. Encourage discussion on every aspect of your event, from the aforementioned event tickets to reviews afterwards. Getting them to come back for updates is great, but getting them to come back because they want to interact is even better.

Playing the Odds

            When promoting your event tickets online, try to cast as wide of a net as possible. Networking can spread like wildfire, as one connections links you to another who links you to another and so on. Your target demographic for event tickets is simply your first audience, but they are certainly not your last. Once you connect with them, you can expect your message to spread.

            If you’re creating compelling content about your event tickets, your updates will get passed along from person to person, and suddenly a link to your site is popping up everywhere. This makes up your expanded audience, those who end up visiting your site and investigating your event tickets because they saw a link somewhere.

            It’s the grapevine of the 21^st century!

Headquarters

            It is absolutely essential that, while promoting your event tickets, you have all of your online interactions point back to your web site. Your latest status update may be interesting enough to gain you new fans, but unless they are following you back to your web site, it won’t translate into event ticket sales.

            The process works both ways. It easier than ever to imbed your social media updates into your web site. You want to make sure that anyone who comes to your site directly can also follow you through other sites. Once they add you as a friend or a follower, they indirectly become a part of your marketing team!

            Social media marketing is a cost effective, high traffic way of selling more of your event tickets. With just a little bit of time and effort, you can receive a big return on your small investment!

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Whether your school is putting on a fundraiser carnival and you want to get all the parents, teachers and students involved, or you're touring with your new band and want to see plenty of faces at the venue, you'll need to manage a campaign that will generate interest in your event. Throughout the course of your promotion, you might manage an online marketing plan, rely on word or mouth, or print event tickets, posters, flyers, invitations, and other promotional materials that raise your visibility.

Online marketing helps you reach a wider audience, share details and market event tickets. Buzz generated by friends, family and fans is  great for grassroots marketing, and physical collateral gives your event a real world presence. These promotional materials, especially event tickets, can be the most powerful tools in your marketing plan.

More than Just an Event Ticket

Take a moment to consider event tickets. Obviously, you'll need admission tickets to get folks through the turnstiles, but that's not their only use. Custom printed tickets can serve several important functions at your event.

Marketing Tools—When you design event tickets for your occasion, you have a choice. If you're thinking only of function, any tickets will do. However, the admission ticket may be your attendees first point of contact with your event. So much more can be included than a simple "admit one." Imagine how including formal branding and event details can raise profile of your event.

Crowd Management and Tracking Tools—Secure, numbered tickets with perforated stubs can be useful in the management of people into and out of your event and at particular venues within it. Custom tickets allow you to maintain the integrity of your event. Secure numbering and detachable stubs allows you to track the flow of guests into the gates. Selling Drink Tickets and custom passes, such as VIP passes, before the event allow you to manage concessions and activities quickly and safely. They allow you to keep cash exchanges more centralized and secure.

Raffle Management—A well designed ticket is essential for the management of a fundraising raffle.  It's important for your raffle tickets to not only contain important details, but they should also have secure numbering, detachable stubs and room for the guests' details, as well. These tickets aren't just meant to get guests through the gate. They're used to manage the entire lifecycle of the raffle. Event organizers can track ticket buyers through the numbering system, and the stubs are used for the raffle draw.

Door Prizes—Much like raffle tickets, a well designed admission ticket can be used to manage door prizes. Ticket sellers can hold onto stubs when guests come through the gate and announce winners throughout the event. This encourages folks to hold onto their custom event tickets throughout the occasion.

Memory Management—A great ticket might be the only souvenir a guest takes away from the occasion. Why not make it memorable? Strong imagery and branding will help the memory of your event to remain with your guests far into the future.

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Are you part of the resurgence in the world’s most awesome sport? It’s time for you and all your roller derby gals to get competitive. You can offer public sporting events—your team versus other local rollers. Start planning, promoting, and selling event tickets for your bouts and let your jammers start lapping for the fans! It’s time to lace up your skates, squeeze into your campiest uniform, and get rolling.

Call it like it is: Your team moniker

Roller Derby teams need clever names. Puns reflecting your punk third-wave feminist roots are a sure draw for crowds and fans: the Sandra Day O’Clobbers, the Shevil Knevils, the Beauty School Knockouts, and the Rushin’ Rollettes. Be as violent as you like! Or, choose two words, say an adjective and a noun, that best encompass your team, like the Zany Fembots. Just make sure your name is intriguing and your fans feel like they’re in on the joke.

High noon: When to meet

When you’re ready to brawl, contact other roller derby teams in your area and decide which one your team will battle. You may be able to join a league and schedule a series of derbies. Can’t decide whom to meet first? Create your own raffle tickets and draw a name from a hat. Once you’ve decided upon whom, you need to figure out when. Pick a date and a time for your event. Consider days and times that would work best for the audience you are trying to attract. Audiences for roller derbies are diverse: from families to hipsters to teens, so your breadth should be vast, but conscious about your target audience. Families prefer daytime, weekend event. Teens may be available in the afternoon, after school, and twenty-somethings like to stay out late.

Meet me in the parking lot: Choose your venue:

If your city doesn’t already have a dedicated roller derby rink, you will to find need a venue that can satisfy the inherent needs of the sport. True roller derby typically requires a sports arena or a gymnasium, but you could also convert a large gallery or performance space. If you know of a space that often exhibits artwork or avant garde performance, you may persuade them to host your derby as a way to further the venue’s original intent. Perhaps a very large gallery that could accommodate a derby may choose to have your team battle another team in their space while highlighting related artwork such as photographs of Derby girls alongside your event. If the venue already has a box office or a way of handling ticket sales, that’s a bonus for you, as it makes it easier to sell event tickets.

Shout it out: Event promotion

Get your artists on the job. Your general promotion should be creative and intriguing. Collage-style designs featuring your team portrait or other relevant images can be distributed as postcards. Include the date and time, the venue, the ticket price, the names of the both teams, and information on where to get the tickets (don’t forget to include any relevant URLs). Take it to the streets and pass out the postcards in your derby garb to attract some attention. Hang posters in book shops, record stores, college campuses, and other local businesses. In addition to this, use your website and other networking tools such as Facebook to promote the event.

At the door: Get your event tickets right here

Have fun with these! Use your original promotional designs to create a unique custom ticket, or choose an online event ticket template. These can be printed on demand and are a good way to create the tickets for your event. Remember to include the same pertinent information you used on your postcard or promotional flyer: who, what, when, where, how much. Don’t forget web addresses or phone numbers where people can get more information. Consider creative ways to make those tickets your own! In designing your event tickets, you may include the logo for both teams or photos of the two teams. Individually numbered event tickets with perforated stubs help you keep track of attendance, control the venue, and increase security. Selling event tickets helps you realize some profit for your event, giving your team even more passion to have a great and memorable roller derby battle!

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Kids and Stickers. They go together like sparkles and glue, like gift-wrap and tape, like paste and construction paper. Kids love Stickers. Educators know that kids love Stickers. Marketing professionals know that kids love Stickers. Isn’t it time you used a resource your school has in abundance—kids—and one that you can obtain easily—Stickers—to promote your school, motivate your students, and create something unique to represent your values?

Adherence: Marketing 101

The best way to sell something is to get your customers to sell it for you. If you’ve ever invited corporate sponsors into your school, or participated in any large, multi-school program, you’ve most likely noticed that free Stickers are offered to your kids. Some of them may end up in the trash, the laundry, or the bottoms of your students’ sneakers, but it only takes one Sticker, stuck in the right place, to create free advertising.

Some adults may be wary of sticking ads on their personal property. Not so with kids! Those who love Stickers the most will be happy to stick any corporate logo on their notebook. Why not take advantage of this trend to market your school? If a child will happily display the name of a company that has offered him or her a free water bottle, how much more will they be willing to spread the word about the school they love?

Follow Instructions

All you need to do is print your school’s name on a stack of Vinyl, Economy, or Bumper Stickers. But don’t stop there. You’ve got a website, right? Prominent inclusion of the URL makes it easier for potential parents to find you online. What about a logo? If you haven’t got a logo, hold a contest and get the kids to draw one for you. Now you’ve got a beautiful, child-centric design to attract the people you want.

Other options include adding an image of your school, your mascot, prominent alumni, or anything else that appeals to your students. This is a creative medium! Stretch your mind: find the images that work for you, and add your names and website to create the perfect marketing tool.

The Old Math

You may already be using Stickers to spread the word. Many schools offer Bumper Stickers to parents of honors children, and more recently, these Stickers have been customized for parents of children in the band, on sports teams, with perfect attendance, or even those who simply show up on a semi-regular basis. “Proud Parent of an XYZ School Student” may be enough.

If you’re not already offering Bumper Stickers along these lines to your parents, either as rewards for their children’s performance or as part of your fundraising efforts, this is one situation when you want to be on the bandwagon.

The New Math

Bumper Stickers are, as they say, Old School. They certainly get around, but there’s more to the story. Why aren’t you offering your kids custom Stickers with their school’s name on them?

If you begin with an assortment, you can use them as incentives and rewards for different activities. You can create Stickers for each athletic team, each after-school activity, each instrument in the band. You can create Stickers that celebrate grades, attendance, or community service.

You can create a range of collectible Stickers to motivate young children to complete a series of tasks so they can collect them all. You can create customized rewards that will be highly coveted. Just find an inexpensive source for items that children need or want anyway, then slap a Sticker in the center:

• Notebooks
• Pencil cases
• Water bottles
• Kleenex packets
• Binders
• ID cards or badges
• Folders

Better yet, ask your students what kind of prizes they’d like to earn!

The more items available, the more stealth marketing you can do. Wherever your kids take their Stickers, they’re offering your school free publicity.

Final Exam

Small and portable, the possibilities are pretty much limited by how many Stickers you’re willing to buy and your creativity in finding ways to use and distribute them. Once they’re in the kids’ hands, those Stickers will announce to the world you’re your school is on the map. Whether you choose to sell them or give them away, offer them as prizes or incentives, Stickers in schools create a winning situation all around.

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Let’s talk low tech.

Of course, you need to hype your band with blogs, homepages, forums, free downloads, viral videos, and email newsletters, but you don’t live your entire life online, and neither do your fans. You can’t skip Internet marketing, but you can’t stand on it either. Fortunately, there’s a time-tested, low-cost, high-profile way to spread your name and grow your fan base: Stickers.

What goes on a sticker?

The perfect band name, perhaps coupled with that perfect band logo, is all you need to start. Save it as a digital file. For very little money, you can print that file on a stack of custom Vinyl, Bumper, or Economy Stickers. Choose the option that fits your budget, or order an assortment.

Band names and logos are merely your jumping off point. You can start with a single design, but you’ll do better with a few different ones. Don’t underestimate the power of fan art! If you already have an active Internet community around your band, ask them for designs based on album or song titles, lyrics, or even caricatures of the band. Another option is to enter into a deal with an artist whose work you admire. You may be able to buy or barter the rights to a design you already love, or commission one especially for your band.

Be sure to include your website in the design, so fans know where to go to learn more.

You’ve got Stickers. Now what?

Stickers are the ultimate stealth marketing tool. They create a presence for your band wherever they go, and they can go literally everywhere. Depending on the size of your band, the power of your reputation, and the number of people who are willing to help you out, you’ve got three basic options.

• Give your Stickers away for free to your fans
• Sell your Stickers to your fans
• Place the Stickers yourself as part of a viral marketing campaign

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

If you’re just starting out on the scene, or if you have a small but passionate fan base, you may want to choose option one. Free Stickers help you give back to the community. Everyone loves getting something for free, especially if it’s swag from someone they admire. You can offer free Stickers to people who sign up for your newsletter, or attend certain events, or, if you’re feeling lucky, you can simply give them out in front of clubs or other venues where music lovers hang out.

Free Stickers end up on laptop computers, class notebooks, water bottles, high school lockers, and other high-profile locations. If you’ve already got an eye-catching logo, potential fans will notice the Stickers on their friends’ possessions and ask about the band, visit your website, or Google you. It an easy way to spread your influence.

Money, money, money, money, money

If you’re already turning a profit and just want to expand your reach, offer your fans something new, and come out even, you’ll want to sell those Stickers. Bands with merchandise tables find that inexpensive Stickers sell themselves, even with a relatively large markup. They’re cheaper than T-shirts and, while most folks will wear a T-shirt no more than once a week, a Sticker can proclaim your allegiance every day.

You can also sell Stickers online. Your virtual merchandise booth is a great way to figure out how much interest you’re generating. If you see spikes in Sticker sales after a big promotion or event, you know people are paying attention.

Down in the Underground

Stealth, underground, or viral marketing is the hottest way to spread the word. You can use the same Stickers, or you may want to create mysterious and not entirely clear designs that compel viewers to check out that website. The trick is to place them where folks are likely to notice.

Giving these Stickers away to a particular, elite group of fans, with instructions to place them where they will be seen, is one way to go. However, you’ll want to place many yourself for an extra edge.

Don’t make the mistake of upsetting potential supporters by littering the world with your Stickers. Defacing public or private property is likely to backfire. It’s OK to stick them on public message boards or places where hanging Posters is acceptable. It’s not OK to put them in the middle of other peoples’ plate glass windows.

The cardinal rule of Sticker placement on private property?

• ASK FIRST!

Many club owners will be happy to allow to you stick them around the club. Others will not. It’s important to know before you act. Once you have permission, be creative. Let your Stickers wait in unexpected places: on the ceiling, under counters, behind doors. Viral Sticker marketing campaigns should provide pleasant surprises, amusing moments for viewers. Depending on local ordinances, it may be OK to stick them on places where they won’t last long, like sidewalks. Again, find out the rules before your begin.

The greater your coverage, the more effective your campaign. Make lists of places where potential fans congregate and try to get your Stickers nearby.

Tying your Sticker campaign to an event such as a show, a CD release, or a new video provides a sense of purpose as well as a time frame. If you’ve created a desirable Sticker and band image, your underground marketing Stickers can become a commodity of themselves.

The bottom line is that the right Sticker in the right place can help your band get the attention it needs to succeed.

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1.  Utilize Email Marketing

Keeping people continually informed and interested in your school and its events is a difficult task (in addition to the rest of the toils of operating a school). An email marketing campaign makes keeping in touch with parents and community members simple, and is well worth the minimal effort. The following are some quick tips to develop a successful email marketing campaign.

• Tailor emails for Each Recipient’s Interests: In order to be successful with an email campaign you must know what your recipients find valuable. There are a few options to achieve this. When your recipients first sign up for your email be sure to include boxes they can check to receive information for each club, student organization, sports team, as well as general school news or other topically related content. Another option is to include surveys and polls with each email, this way you can continually react to your recipients desires even if they change.

• Establish a Schedule for Writing and Distributing: Establishing a set frequency is required to hold people’s attention and keep them looking forward to receiving your emails. You must find a balanced based on available resources, your ability to create valuable information, and your recipient’s desires.

• Email Marketing Software: Email marketing software is a great investment as it integrates database information and designs specific emails for each recipient group. The obvious benefit is the time saved by eliminating the need to manually compose each email and enter data. EmailLabs.com provides good API software.

2.  Incorporate a Web Calendar

It’s essential to integrate a web calendar into the school website. Period. A web calendar allows visitors to quickly check up on current events, and even add to their own calendars. They can also be customized to different groups, and updated easily by many users simultaneously. There are many web calendar applications out there. Trumba event calendars
(www.trumba.com) are easy to use and offer several useful features. Both Google and Yahoo also offer free event calendars.

3.  Host Blogs/Forums

As stated earlier, keeping your school in the fore-front of people’s minds should be the overall goal; a blog on your school webpage is an efficient way to accomplish this. Creating separate blogs for each student activity group will allow visitors to easily find the blogs that interest them. For example, the head football coach might maintain a blog on the football page. Remember to include pictures in your blogs for visual reference. For more valuable info on creating a great blog visit buildabetterblog.com.

4.  Integrate Wiki Pages

A Wiki page is a webpage with the capability of being edited by authorized website visitors. Not many schools have wiki pages, which presents a great opportunity for your school. Sports teams, music and choral departments, and student organizations should each have a dedicated wiki page on your school’s website. Wiki pages communicate real, personal experiences and interaction, and invoke excitement. Parents, students, or anyone involved can post pictures, stories, and comments relating to each entity. Not only will this create a sense of involvement for contributors, but the insightful content will also spark the interest of non-contributing visitors. PBwiki provides a wiki application that makes creating media rich wiki pages a breeze. For more information on general wiki page creation, visit www.intersci.ss.uci.edu.

5.  Post Regular Video and Podcasts

Podcasts are utilized even less often by schools than wikis, but are a great way to promote student events. Podcasts are similar to blogs in that they can easily be published, syndicated, shared and accessed by the general public; the main difference being the information is audio and video rather than just text. Collect audio and video files of existing moments during athletic events, band concerts, theater events, etc. Users can help spread the word by downloading the files and sharing them via iPod, email, Facebook or MySpace posts. Podcasts go a long way toward creating buzz and excitement for your events.

It’s important to post new podcasts regularly, otherwise the appeal is lost. In order to preserve talk and excitement, people must have something new to talk about. Apple.com has more info on podcasts.

6.  Establish RSS Feeds

An RSS (“real simple syndication”) feed is vital to the effectiveness of the above components. Subscribers are automatically updated on new website content or events without having to regularly check your website. New podcasts or video content, newsletters, blog posts, school news, or current events should be put on your RSS feed homepage. An RSS feed can also be integrated with your web calendar or published on other web sites. Ultimately an RSS allows even the most time constrained individuals to stay up-to-date on your schools news and events. For more info on creating RSS feeds visit WilsonWeb.com.

7.  Consider Social Networking

As the web continues to grow more “social” a number of opportunities are presented that allow for efficient and effective communication with the people involved with your school. Post some of your better videos, stories and pictures on sites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Flickr. Doing these things will go toward creating an adequate web presence, an element that will directly affect event attendance.

You might not want to get too entrenched with social networking, but you don’t want to get left behind either. Place someone in charge of keeping track of the constant changes in technology this way your school can react strategically. Making your media and information easy to obtain will increase the chance that it will become widely distributed.

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