How to Promote Your Event

Editor's Notes

• #4: This talk is: Promotional plans are kind of dry Change the way we attract students to our events to find and welcome more inclusive attendees Easily forgotten for newer organizers This talk is not: Telling you how to graphically design your marketing materials. I’m personally not great at that, but I can give a few tips on setting the tone I’ll give resources to help with this at the end
• #6: Those are great, but they are not enough
• #7: Why am I giving this talk?
• #8: Narrowed down in three areas
• #9: These are pretty high level ideas, so let’s break it down into actual things you can do
• #11: You need to get on their calendar because it fills up Also don’t want to be on the same day as one of their events Ask to get 5-10 min at one of their general meetings and make it mutually beneficial When speaking at a meeting: Explain what it is Why it *might* matter to them Be open for questions and more explanation Try to lower the barrier of entry as much as possible Don’t want to go and intimidate a whole organization Which leads to another great thing to do...
• #12: Friends with a capital F These Friends can post and email on your event’s behalf Doesn’t need to be a hacker but they do need to understand the event and have similar values The key is that they are trusted within a community, organization, or school department A recommendation by someone you trust goes a long way
• #14: The more tailored the message, the better and more successful it is Enlist the help from your Friends to post in Facebook groups and advertise through email lists on campus We need to do a better job of this because copy and pasting the same thing in 10 different Facebook groups is not targeted or personal at all It’s spam The posts should be specific to your audience you are talking and express why it might interest and matter to them This is an opportunity to make a connection between two different groups or communities, use it wisely Be careful to not make mistakes of assuming certain things about your audience and respect guidelines that group, organization, or community has Be thoughtful
• #15: Use to the same messaging to stay consistent and build momentum  You don’t always realize it but wording and tone you use in promotion of their event can make a big difference Less “hacking”, less non quantifiable words, and more welcoming words like “creating,” “building,” and “making” When you think of it, hacking is an art form so let’s approach it more like that
• #16: Talks can show a focus on learning and help newer hackers Sometimes there’s a barrier that they don’t feel they don’t know enough to attend, talks can help lower that barrier Helps include more hackers
• #17: https://medium.com/hackers-and-hacking/hackathon-stories-2077482865f3
• #18: Stories can say a lot We are lucky to be here at Hackcon to talk about our experiences and values, but this is a way to do it outside of Hackcon and to promote our awesome community members and our events Writing posts to highlight hackers is a great way to have stories “live on”
• #19: Example from PennApps in 2013 https://medium.com/@pennapps/team-profile-trachoma-tracker-5068cbf3aeff
• #20: Show where someone came from, not everyone was coding at age 12, or is instantly is a hackathon winner How? Interviews, general reporting, photo essays Can also be something to pass off to the press that communicates your values without them doing it for you or incorrectly expressing them