Promoting Your Event on Campus

BCM offers this tool kit to staff, faculty, and students seeking to promote campus events and opportunities to the Bates community.

Email Listservs

The strength of email listservs is that you know exactly who you are communicating with. Whereas an Instagram account may have followers spread across multiple populations such as alumni, students, and members of the public, Bates email listservs are focused around specific populations.

Institutional Listservs

Institutional listservs include faculty@groups.bates.edu (all faculty), staff@groups.bates.edu (all staff). Additional student listservs exist specifically for first years, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Messages to these listservs are required to be specifically relevant to their audiences and delivered 24 hours in advance to allow time for moderation. Student listservs are governed by Campus Life’s listserv policy.

Specific Listservs

Smaller, more targeted listservs are also in place through Bates Engage for student clubs and organizations, and through Banner for academic classes and majors. Various other listservs exist as well such as minors, advisees, GECs, and students studying off-campus.

Mailing Lists

A number of campus offices and academic departments and programs manually maintain mailing lists that may be a good fit for promoting your event. Examples of these lists include the Office of Intercultural Education, the Museum of Art, and Harward Center for Community Partnerships.


Bates Student-centric Platforms

Bates Today

A powerful way to share information with all students, Bates Today is a daily email digest with 2,200-plus subscribers that generates 750 click-throughs per day. Please email AskBatesToday@bates.edu with any questions. 

All students automatically receive Bates Today, and members of the campus community with Bates email accounts can subscribe online as well.

How to submit your announcement to Bates Today

Submit via this form by noon to be included in the next day’s Bates Today. Announcements for the Weekend and Monday editions must be submitted by noon on Friday.

Making your submission compelling

Your subject line becomes the clickable link that students see. Please limit it to 70 characters and make it as clear as possible to encourage interested readers to learn more.

“Featured” announcements

Each day, several Bates Today announcements are grouped as “Featured” announcements. Staff of the Office of Campus Life choose which items to feature based on a range of factors.

Bates Today and EMS

When you reserve space in the campus Event Management System, you will be asked, “Would you like this event included in the Bates Today daily event listing?“ Indicating “YES” will submit your event to also be included in Bates Today event listing.

Bates Engage

Bates Engage is a mobile app and website designed to help you get involved with all aspects of life on campus. You can:

  • Discover events and programs.
  • Explore and join clubs and organizations.
  • Manage your daily schedule.
  • Chat with friends.
  • And more!

To experience all of the features Bates Engage offers, please visit engage.bates.edu. You can also download the Bates Engage Mobile app from the App Store and Google Play. Questions? Email Campus Life at engage@bates.edu.

Campus Monitor Slides

If you would like to share a message via a campus monitor, Post & Print can work with you to fit that message into a template. Please review this guidelines PDF for the carousel digital sign system and campus monitors as a first step.

Your message should be brief, with large text — slides are up for about 10 seconds, and people are walking by! Think of it as a digital highway billboard.


Print

Flyers and posters and where to hang them

When you post your print publicity materials, use only established bulletin boards and public poster areas. Do not post on doors, windows, buildings, lamp posts, or in stairwells. The college discourages advertising the presence of alcohol. Illustrations or pictures of alcohol on posters are not permitted.

  • “The Mouthpiece,” the glass-encased kiosk in front of Hathorn Hall, is usually reserved for major annual events such as Commencement or MLK Day; it can be used for other events with a strong campus-wide appeal. BCM Design Services can help you determine if a Mouthpiece poster is appropriate for your event.
  • BCM requires a two-month advance notice to design, produce, and print a Mouthpiece poster. Please file a CPR through the BCM design processes page in order to begin your job. Paid by the event host, the cost is approximately $250.

Ad holders in dining areas

Small (4”x 6”, portrait-oriented) flyers that are displayed on the tables in Commons and the Den can effectively reach students, faculty, and staff. Larger ad inserts (5.5”x11”, portrait-oriented) for the free-standing napkin dispensers in the Den can also be ordered.

To reserve space in either of these ad holders, contact Kevin Perry (kperry@bates.edu.) If design services are required beyond what Dining Services can provide, a job request CPR can be filed through the BCM design processes page

Tip: The sooner you put your request in with Dining Services the better, as the use of these ad holders is often reserved weeks in advance. 


Bates Website

Campus Space Reservations

Many campus spaces are reservable for current faculty or staff, student organizations, and/or academic/administrative departments through a product called EMS (Event Management System). 

Event Listings

For events using reserved campus spaces that are open to the public, you can choose for your EMS reservation and event listing to be displayed publicly on Bates MasterCalendar and at bates.edu/events.

WordPress Sites

Example website contact information

The college’s public website, www.bates.edu, is a collection of 166 individual sites that together receive 10 million pageviews annually. These sites represent the college online from individual administrative offices and academic departments/programs to campus initiatives and student clubs/organizations. To pursue promoting your event on an individual site within www.bates.edu, look for the contact information in the site’s footer, below the page content and above the “News & Updates” section.


Student Media Outlets

Student Club/Organization Social Media Accounts

Many student clubs and organizations maintain their own social media accounts across platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Depending on these accounts’ number of followers and audience type, they may be a great fit for promoting your event(s). To learn more, visit Campus Life’s Social Media Policy and Guidelines.

The Bates Student

The student newspaper is published multiple times each semester by the students of Bates College when college is in session.

The paper’s editors and writers change frequently so please refer to their website or a recent copy of The Student to determine appropriate contacts.

  • Submitting a story idea: Editorial deadlines require that story ideas should be submitted to the paper’s editor, or a specific writer if one has been identified, several weeks in advance of your event. Develop a “pitch,” a pithy 100-word summary of why your event is a good story for The Student to cover. Include in your pitch the details of the event time and location, as well as your contact information so that editors and reporters can follow up with you.
  • Buying an ad: Placing an ad in The Student could be an effective way to publicize your event. The deadline to submit an ad is typically three days prior to the Wednesday of publication.
  • Letter to the Editor: Letters to the Editor must be received by 6pm on Sunday for Wednesday’s publication. Letters should not exceed 500 words. Please email them to the Managing Forum Editor.

WRBC

At this time the student-run radio station does not allow Public Service Announcements or advertising of campus events.


Additional Options

Chalking

The college’s policy on non-curricular student public displays addresses chalking.

Email Sigs

A quick and easy way to promote your upcoming event is to include the who, what, where, when, or link, in your email signature. With every email you send, they’ll be aware of the event and can click a link to learn more or buy tickets.


Institutional College Platforms

BatesNews

The subscription-based BatesNews delivers stories to alumni, parents, and friends of Bates via email and is mostly read by those beyond our campus who are unable to attend local events.

There are occasions, however, when an event would warrant post-event coverage in BatesNews, such as when an acclaimed or newsworthy speaker, artist, or performer comes to campus. When in doubt, contact Jay Burns, editorial director.

Social Media Channels

Since the college’s primary institutional social media channels are oriented towards off-campus audiences — alumni, parents and families, prospective students — we don’t recommend depending on these channels as a primary form of outreach in support of targeting Lewiston/Auburn audiences to boost event attendance.

In some cases however, we may be able to include event postings on our Instagram Stories feed, knowing that this specific channel has popularity among the Bates campus community. You may contact digital@groups.bates.edu with your event posting at least 3 days prior to the event time.

For larger, more publicly inclusive events, running targeted ads through Meta Ads Manager can be an effective way to reach Lewiston/Auburn audiences. To learn more about this event promotion opportunity, email digital@groups.bates.edu.

Press releases and news coverage

BCM can help get the word out to local and state media if your event has strong news value or a timely connection to current events.

For help in determining if your event warrants a Bates College press release or outreach to the media, please contact communications@bates.edu. All college news and information released to the media should be coordinated through this office.