The Publicity Coordinator is responsible for all of Tech Squares publicity. This is a large job, but there are usually some appointed officers/Publicity Assistants who help.
Responsibilities of the Publicity Coordinator:
- Publicizing the Class & intro night
- Publicizing special dances (Saturday Dances)
- Sending weekly email (see Emailed Announcements)
- Updating the google calendar (see How to update the calendar)
- Write spoken announcements (see Club Announcements)
- Activities Midway
- First year summer mailing
- Handling our social media
Most of the publicity coordinator's responsibilities revolve around recruiting for the class. Here are things we've done in the past as part of advertising the Tech Squares class. Especially long items should have their own page. We don't have to do all these items every year, but most of them aren't that hard and provide some benefit. Be careful of the ASA recruitment blackout in the fall.
Announcements and calendar
See the How to update the calendar page. The front page of our website is generated from the calendar information. Try to keep the calendar and announcements in sync: if it appeared in the weekly email and was announced on Tuesday, it should also appear on the front page. (But be careful about posting personal information online; usually sanitize emails addresses (and names where appropriate) by using squares@mit.edu instead. For example, instead of "Contact Jen at jen@someplace.xyz if you are interested in coordinating rides to PDQ", for the web write "Contact squares@mit.edu if you are interested in coordinating rides...".)
Budget
Publicity doesn't have a set budget, but that doesn't mean your budget is zero! You very likely can get enough money for a few special projects, in addition to the usual photocopies.
Postering
Lots of info about postering, as well as copies of past posters, are listed on our Posters page.
Campus
Dorms / Living Groups
Individuals
People will poster the door of their dorm, their office, and pass a poster onto their friends as a reminder if you make the posters available to them. So have some extra posters at gate starting a few weeks before class and also email out a location online where they can be printed from. For that matter, someone may volunteer to poster main campus or their dorm for you!
Infinite Display
We can also get free postering on Infinite Display, the large flat screen displays in the Student Center and Stata Center, and for nominal cost, posts on the displays in the infinite corridor as well. We should at least do as much as we can get for free (3 days per semester in the Student and Stata Centers), and possibly more.
Tech ad
Every student group gets some amount of free ad space in The Tech. http://tech.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/ads/policies.html Use it!
LSC slide
LSC shows slides before movies. You can pay to have one shown. Prices aren't bad, and nearly everyone there will be staring at it, which is awesome if you make your slide eye-catching. Info http://mv.ezproxy.com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/info/slides.shtml
Emails
tech-squares-interest@mit.edu
This list has all the addresses from the Activities Midway, people who write and ask us about joining the next class, and people who started former classes and didn't finish.
"dorm spam"
Most of the dorms and living groups have a social type email list where spam about the class can be sent. This is awesome since a lot of people are on these lists. Some of them are moderated, and I don't know the details, hopefully Dennis or someone can fill this in.
Template for individuals
We should encourage people to bring their friends (especially their student friends!) to class. It's easier for people to spam their friends if we give them a template email that they can just forward. (It works better if they write something custom, but this lowers the bar and gets them writing that email in the first place, and then they can still rewrite it however they like.) Write something up and send it to tech-squares-social.
Social media
Facebook, google+, whatever people are using by the time you read this! Create an event, post a picture to the group, encourage people to share it around and invite their friends.
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