How one guy is using Zvents to promote his music and support a good cause

Are you a performer, artist or public speaker who wants free publicity for your events? Create a free Performer listing on Zvents. Your listing is the place to tell others about yourself and your upcoming appearances. Here’s how one performer is using Zvents to get the word out about his music and events:

Silverdave, a songwriter/storyteller aka Dave Silverberg, has been performing in Bay Area clubs and cafes for years. Recently, Dave learned about Zvents and created his own Performer listing to reach a wider audience and to help promote an upcoming show. Along with four other local acoustic artists, he is hosting the Second Thought Festival, a benefit concert for suicide prevention.

“A good friend recently lost a friend to suicide, and was understandably feeling depressed. Maybe it could have been prevented, if he could have reached out to someone”, said Dave. “That sparked the idea for the show – we figured, hey, we can help by raising money for a local suicide prevention group. Someone else’s life can be saved.”

Silverdave will perform this Sunday night at Hotel Utah, along with artists Mia & Jonah, Nurse Reagan, and Billy Schafer. All artist proceeds from the event go to the San Francisco Suicide Prevention organization. Thanks Dave, for using Zvents to promote your concert!

Here’s how to get the most out of creating your own Performer listing:

• Sign up for a free Zvents account (if you don’t already have one)
• Add a Performer listing, and make your profile interesting. Add images, related links, and tags.
  • About tags – To help people find you, add tags of common misspellings of your name. If you are known under different names, add those too.
• Add upcoming events – from your Performer page, go to the Tools menu (located in the top left section of the page), and select “New Event for Performer” under the “Performer” section. Enter your event details here.
• Tell your friends, family, and fans about your profile. Ask them to sign up for an RSS feed of your page, so they will get automatic updates when you add new events or update your information. It’s a great way to stay in touch!
• Share your listing through popular social media tools, like Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg and StumbleUpon. Click the “Share” tool on your page to get started.

For ideas on how to create your own Performer listing, check out these for inspiration:

• Seth Godin, Marketing Guru
• Anjelah Johnson, Comedian
• Mebanesville, Acoustic Rock
• Nitidus, Award-winning Hard Rock Band
• The Pocket, Reggae/Alternative Rock Band
• Stephen Sanfilippo, Painter
• Stoney Creek Warriors, Junior Hockey Team
• Slingshot Country Band, yep…a Country Band!

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Octane’s Harry Hallman has been looking into social networks and suspects demand for such a service on behalf of event marketers. We whole heartedly agree and encourage you to take the survey they are soliciting in which they ask that very question.

<blockquote>”If you are an event professional please compete this survey. No names are required, but you can get a summary once it is done if you leave your email address.”</blockquote>

Octane, an Atlanta based interactive and analytics agency, leverages new media to deliver effective, efficient results. Hallman a partner with over 30 years marketing experience has, for the last 12, been devoted to interactive and internet marketing. With resources dedicated to platforms such as MySpace and social media, web design, and word of mouth marketing, Octane is worth your consideration set.

Give the survey a few minutes of your time.

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Event marketers looking for industry insights and an opportunity to collaborate with peers should consider joining EMI, an industry organization supported by industry publisher Red 7 Media. The Event Marketing Institute is a think tank; a professional resource advancing best practices, insights and business intelligence for event marketers and companies as well as marketing professionals who leverage events as a strategic initiative.

Through education, research, and analysis of event marketing strategies, EMI works to help members manage the increasingly fragmented media environment and deliver accountable and profitable results from event marketing expenses. They offer an extensive list of event marketing services and resources exclusive to their members and have our support as we, coincidentally, work along side one another to streamline the event marketing industry and limit the number of touch points you have to manage and promote events.

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Did you know that you can use Zvents to advertise your garage sales, yard sales, and rummage sales? Whether you’re selling stuff you no longer need, or for a good cause, getting the word out about your sale is a key component to making it a success.

Here’s where Zvents can help. Listing your sale on Zvents is an effective way to promote your garage sale, because:

• It’s free to list your sale. Sign up for a free account to get started.
• Your listing is automatically syndicated to our newspaper partners (we have over 80). Say your sale is in Costa Mesa, CA. Your online listing would also appear on LA.com, Orange County Register, and SqueezeOC, plus a few smaller papers – and you only entered it once!
• Zvents is frequently crawled by major search engines, like Google and Yahoo, so there’s a good chance your sale will appear in natural search engine results too.

Below are six tips for successful online promotion of your garage sale on Zvents:

1. When to advertise? We recommend listing your sale 2-3 weeks prior to the date. This gives people time to find your listing and also gives major search engines, like Google and Yahoo, time to index your Zvents listing. This makes it more likely to be found by people searching online.
2. Where is it? Make sure you list the correct address. Zvents automatically generates a map for your listing, which includes driving directions.
3. What’s for sale? Include ‘hot’ items you are selling, popular items might include:

• Baby clothing & items
• Furniture
• Toys
• Bicycles
• Tools
• Sporting equipment
• Books
• CDs/DVDs/Tapes
• Small Kitchen Appliances
• Unusual items, like this Hello Kitty Beach Cruiser

4. When is the sale taking place? List the start and end times of the sale, and be sure to specify if early birds are not allowed…or you might have some folks knocking on your door at 6:00 am!
5. A picture is worth a thousand words. If you have pictures of some of your items, upload them to enhance your sale listing.
6. You say puh-tay-toe, I say poe-ta-toe. Make sure you tag your listing, because one person’s garage sale is another person’s yard sale, and yet another’s rummage or tag sale! Including different terms will ensure that your listing shows up when users search with various words.

Got other ideas on how to promote your sale online? Let us know with a comment.

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We recently had a chance to sit down with Development Director for the Foundation for Blind Children, Elizabeth O’Brien, who is preparing for the annual fund raiser “Night for Sight.” Our goal? To understand and share with you the challenges, both online and off, in promoting fund raising and philanthropic events while learning what more could be done to help such worthwhile causes.

The Foundation for Blind Children helps blind and visually impaired children, adults and their families lead lives of independence and dignity through mastery of their environment. Headquartered in Phoenix, they are only agency of it’s kind in Arizona and service more children than any other blind organization in the country. November 3rd is their 6th Night for Sight event, “Night for Sight is our annual fund raiser held at Mastro’s City Hall Steakhouse. The event is an opportunity for FBC to increase our awareness, recognize individuals and their great work and raise money to help our programs,” she explains.

Liz started in event marketing and promotions with a Destination Management Company in Scottsdale, AZ and then focused her efforts in experiential marketing; as she explains, “What peaks consumers interests and what makes them tick.” She spent time at Verrado in Buckeye, AZ and expressed the community’s brand through the various events she designed to attract new neighbors. From there, she moved to the Foundation for Blind Children to make a difference in the lives of the children for whom they care most, “We give hope for a future to parents of visually impaired children, opportunity to teenagers looking to belong and a renewed spirit to the elderly losing their sight.”

Night for Sight, which started out as a backyard BBQ, is now host to more than 500 guests with local celebrity Emcee KTVK Channel 3’s Tara Hitchcock. To raise money, they run a live auction filled with items from a Super Bowl Extravaganza weekend package to exclusive tickets to NYC Sports Illustrated parties. Erik Weihenmayer, the blind world class adventurer, is donating his time to hike the peak of the highest bidders choice in Arizona or Colorado and the Foundation is raffling off a 2008 Cadillac Escalade.

“Mastro’s City Hall is a restaurant with atmosphere and class,” says Liz, “a great evening to mingle with some of the Valley’s most prominent, energetic philanthropists.”

We learned though that promoting such an exceptional event is not without its share of challenges. The Phoenix, AZ Valley is host to multiple non profits and distinguishing an event, charitable or not, from the rest is difficult when budgets are tight. “Details for events can constantly change far after promotional materials need to go to print - and thus it is difficult to keep any printed items current,” explains Liz. “Every piece of collateral that is printed promotes our website, SeeItOurWay.org. We currently use that website to showcase pictures from last year’s event as well as give information about any upcoming events.” Liz is responsible for streamlining FBC’s marketing efforts while encouraging repeat use of the website to find new event details that are only available online. “We have purchased websites that will link to SeeItOurWay.org which will remain available to donors year round and solely focused on events.” The Foundation for Blind Children also works closely with Prime-3 to promote events through news outlets and local valley interest websites websites.

One of the easiest ways to support events through those news outlets is with Zvents. Liz has been using Zvents’ local search index for more than a year to promote events. Most recently, leveraging our syndication with Arizona’s East Valley Tribune and GetOutAZ to reach their readers online and off. “Zvents allows FBC to manage our own event specifics and make them available to the masses,” explains Liz, “When event details change I can personally make the adjustments to Zvents website. Zvents’ website links directly to SeeItOurWay.org which brings me new potential donors and/or volunteers.” Liz shared with us that she loves the ease of adding new events to the website and as well as they fun of discovering other events to attend. “It is helpful to find out what similar events are happening in the area that might conflict with a new event I am creating. Zvents is a trusted resource for me and I encourage everyone I know to frequent it. The more consumers that use the Zvents website, the better chance I have of finding new event attendees.”

Well said Liz.

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