The lack of a universal calendar means that every entity promoting events has its own event calendar. Some organizations offer community calendars through which businesses like yours can add your events to the community pie. I know you already posted your events on your own website, on your Facebook page, and in your newsletter. But it’s worth your time to add your events to these calendars because, unless you survey all of your event attendees, you truly never know where people go for information.

Today, do some research and make a list of community calendars available to you. Places to look include websites for the local newspaper, alternative newspapers, your local NPR station, other radio stations, your convention and visitors bureau, etc. Sending a news release to these media outlets is not enough. In fact, the media will often look to events posted on their community calendars to determine editorial content.

Create a login and keep your username/password in a standard place. Bookmark the page so you can find it easily. And every time you add an event to your master calendar, go down the list and add it to all of the community calendars as well. (Have an author photo ready, because some will allow art uploads.)

And finally, whenever you post an event to a community calendar, at the end of your event copy, add your *own* location where the reader can find more information.

• “Sign up to receive our weekly email newsletter for event updates at www.bookstore.com.”
• “Find out about more Bookstore events at www.bookstore.com.”
• “All of our events can be found (and shared) on our Facebook page.”

The end user might be receiving the same information from more than one source, but increased reach/frequency of the message can only help attendance numbers.