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Promote Your Event

We’re here to help with event promotion basics, website updates, social media outreach, media relations, print pieces, paid advertising, and more.

Have a question about promoting your event? Contact Vanessa Holmgren.

Top Tips for Promoting Your Event

1. Start early.

Promotion starts with uploading your event to the Lewis & Clark calendar using LiveWhale. Include when and where it is, and also a brief description. Once your event is online, it will appear on the main events calendar and on the TV screens around campus!
Ten weeks before an event: If you are planning on designing a graphic or creating materials for your event, now’s the time to start. Reach out to Director of Marketing Caitlin Peel for help strategizing, advice, and guidance.
Eight weeks before an event: Is your event open to the public? Would people be interested in reading or hearing a news story about your event? Contact Marketing Manager Devan Freeman to promote via all social media channels. Contact Director of Public Relations Lois Leveen to discuss submissions for Portland-area calendars and/or to pitch story ideas to reporters.
One month before an event: Send targeted emails to the L&C community and people/groups in the Portland area.

These are just a few of the ways to promote an event, and we can help you develop a plan that works with your budget and goals.

Note for graduate and law school events: Be sure to work with the law school or graduate school communications offices as a first stop, or in coordination with the central communications office, when promoting events.

2. Keep title and description simple, and follow accessibility guidelines.

Remember these tips and review accessibility guidelines when creating calendar events and invites—on our website, in Google calendars, and externally.

Event title should be short and sweet.
Event basics should be clear (start and end time, location, RSVP, cost, contact, etc.)
Event description should explain to your audience what the event is and why they should be interested.
When posting images, be sure to include a caption and/or alt-text. Don’t upload an image that contains valuable information (like a graphic or flyer created on Canva) without also including the content as regular text on the page or in the image caption.

3. Collaborate with us early to earn media coverage.

Media outlets—newspapers, broadcast media, podcasts, etc.—are looking for interesting stories. Lois Leveen, L&C’s director of public relations can help determine what media outlets might want to run a story about your event, either before it happens to draw an audience or afterwards to report on and increase the impact of the event. Note that each media outlet will set its own deadlines and decide whether it will run a particular event.

4. Promote to campus audiences.

LiveWhale, Google calendar, and Gmail are your friends! You can reach out to various campus listservs, campus Google groups, and department newsletters.

Event Promotion Resources and Channels

Post your event to the calendar in LiveWhale, Lewis & Clark’s website:

Include all the important details: title, date, start and end time, summary, location, description (a few sentences to a paragraph of information), cost, and contact information.
Note: it’s important to include a brief summary (1-2 sentences) because that is what appears on event lists and on the main calendar.
Upload a relevant photo and caption.
Be sure that any content that appears in your photo (i.e. custom flyer) is also included as regular text within the event description for accessibility purposes/screen readers.
Select if it’s an online event, open to the public, and/or a dialogue in action event.

Once posted, it will appear on the main events calendar and on the flatscreen digital TV screens on the graduate, law, and undergraduate campuses.

The Campus TV screens display a real-time feed of 30 upcoming events. During the busiest parts of the semester, the screens may only show one day’s events’ at other points in the year, the screens may show several days’ worth. After an event starts, it falls out of the rotation and another event is added to the feed for the screens (no print publicity materials to clean-up!).

You can also share your event with our office to:

Request that your event be included in Source promo email. All stories and events suggested via LiveWhale to “Inst: Source” by 10 a.m. on Friday will be considered for the weekly promotional email sent every Monday to all faculty and staff. If you do not have LiveWhale access and need to send all of the information via email, please submit a written description of the details for your story and/or event to source@lclark.edu. You may also attach images and graphics, but be sure to include a written description for any text that appears there.
Include your event in the monthly Lewis & Clark public events email.
Promote your event on our institutional social media channels.
Pitch your event to local media/reporters.
Note: Our office does not submit events to external media calendars, but our Director of Public Relations can help advise you on the process.

You can spread the word about your event through the mailings, flyers, posters, collaborations with community groups or nonprofits in the area, and targeted email messages to groups on and off campus.

Many local publications and organizations have event calendars to which you can post your event. Deadlines and formats for these calendars vary.

If you have questions about external promotion, feel free to contact Director of Public Relations Lois Leveen.

Current Students

You may request that your information be included in the daily or weekly emails that are distributed to students by emailing your announcement to the appropriate contact at each school:

For The Bark, news and information page for undergraduate students, follow the steps on the contribution page.
For the law school’s weekly and daily announcement emails, contact announce@lclark.edu. Submissions must include:
- Title
- Date, Time, Location
- Description: no more than 50 words – and you can include a link to an outside page. (Announcements not adhering to the 50 word limit will not be posted until revisions are received.)
For posting on a whiteboard in the graduate school, contact gradreg@lclark.edu. For the graduate school’s webpage for current students, follow the appropriate steps on the contribute event/announcement page.

Mossy Log

The Mossy Log publishes a website and weekly paper with campus news, opinion articles from students and faculty, and arts and culture listings for campus and the Portland metro area. Event promotion options include:

Pitch an idea for an article
Purchase an ad

Faculty

You can target your announcement to the faculty of each school by contacting the dean’s office at each school:

College of Arts & Sciences: Debra Richman, executive assistant to the dean of the College, drichman@lclark.edu
Graduate School of Education and Counseling: Murray Cizon, executive assistant to the dean of the graduate school, cizon@lclark.edu
Law School: Rita Martinez, director of faculty services, ritamartinez@lclark.edu

Google Calendar and Direct Email Outreach

Use Google calendar to create an event and invite your contacts. Include anyone you know who might be interested in this topic, as well as folks who attended your events in the past.
Invite various campus departments/offices to your event. You can reach out to departments directly with a request to send your event details to their listservs.
Send a request to faculty asking them to share your event with specific student groups who may be interested in your event/program topic.
Reach out to appropriate student organizations (CAS, Grad SUN, Law).
Ask Athletics to help get the word out.
Work with the Bates Center to connect with student leaders.
Send a special invitation to ASB.
Ask the Vice President of Student Life office to invite the student affairs leadership team.
Faculty and staff are invited to join the ONE L&C Community Forum Listserv to connect with hundreds of L&C employees. ONE L&C is an institution-wide committee charged with promoting a sense of community and belonging for employees through engagement, learning, and service opportunities.

Promote Your Event

Top Tips for Promoting Your Event

1. Start early.

2. Keep title and description simple, and follow accessibility guidelines.

3. Collaborate with us early to earn media coverage.

4. Promote to campus audiences.

Event Promotion Resources and Channels

Lewis & Clark Website

Share With Our Office

Social Media

Off-Campus Audiences

On-Campus Audiences