News and Events Marketing Strategies

Below, you’ll find the Digital Team’s best-practice strategies for getting the most out of your news feed and calendar.

Unfortunately, if you want to get the most out of these tools, you sometimes need to enter things twice. This is largely because Ektron's news feeds and calendars are separate tools (that’s unlikely to change any time soon).

Situation	Strategy	Examples	How To
Announcing an Achievement	Make a news post	Bodle Publishes and Presents on American History Botelho Organizes International Conference on Western Medical Cultures and Gender IUP Sorority, Fraternity Receive National Awards 2008 Holiday Schedule Reminder	How to Work with News Items
Promoting a One-Time Event	Make a news post Create a linked calendar event	International Student Picnic Set for Weekend International Affairs Events	How to Work with Events/Calendar
Promoting a Big One-Time Event	Create a new regular page or a new section of your sites (possibly in your “Events” folder) Create a news post (or posts) Create a linked calendar event	Safety Sciences Career Fair First news item: Safety Sciences Career Fair Set for October 15 Second news item: Registration Deadline Approaching for Safety Sciences Career Fair Career Development Center Events Additional Example: Night for Networking	How to Work with Content
Promoting a Repeating Event	Create a news post Create a repeating linked calendar event	News item: Additional Open Sessions Digital team Events
Promoting a Series of Events	Create a section of your site (possibly in your“ Events” folder) with one page for each event Create a calendar event for each event in the series, each one linked to the appropriate permanent page Post a general announcement about the series in your news feed About one week before each event, post a news release that includes a link to the series home page and to the individual page for this event.	The Series - Six O’Clock Series First news item: Six O'Clock Series Begins First follow-up news item: Gas Prices the Topic of Next Series Event Six O’Clock Series Events
Reinforcing a Department Attribute	Create the pages you need to explain the attribute (e.g., a few pages about your internship program, or a section describing your facilities). Look for and post news items exemplifying that attribute; in the news post, include a link to the main pages about that subject (e.g.,“Jane Doe just finished an internship in ___. Find out more about our internship program.”)