Publicity
Publicising and advertising your events and activities on campus can help you reach a wider audience, gain greater attendance and get the word out about your group. This page will cover a range of different options you have from advertising on the digital screens around campus, or how you can use physical promotion to your advantage. You can also check out our page on 'Social Media' for more information and guidance on using social media to publicise your group.
Use this contents section to navigate through to the relevant section of this page:
Physical Promotion
Flyers and posters might be a more traditional marketing method, but it's a tried and tested one. We’d just ask you to try and be as environmentally friendly as possible and only order the number of flyers you can be sure to distribute. If you’re advertising an event this way, be sure to put it on your EMF. If you want to guarantee your posters won’t be taken down, use one of the three concrete circular billboards we’ve got around campus - there’s one outside James College, one in Market Square, and one outside the Glasshouse.
You could consider creating a cheap banner using bedsheets and paint, but note that this will need to be fire-guarded by our Health and Safety Coordinator before you can put it up. Alternatively you could purchase long-term printed banners or roller banners o use at all your events and sign-up opportunities. You can pick these up relatively cheaply, but just remember not to put any dates on them!
Make sure your designs are memorable, with the correct details on them! Include calls to action (buy a ticket, follow our Instagram) and only the necessary information - don’t crowd the space with lots of additional stuff, and consider whether you’re using the most effective marketing technique for your purpose.
IMPORTANT: Please ensure you adhere to the following rules and laws when putting up posters:
All posters put up around campus must include the name of your student group.
Not doing this puts your group in contravention of the University’s Regulation 13.2. Your poster will be removed and destroyed.
Ensure that your poster does not cover the white accessibility strips on the black poles across campus.
These help students with visual impairments to navigate around campus and must not be covered. Your poster will be removed and you will receive an email reminder.
It is illegal to put posters on council property.
This includes lampposts, bus signs, and bus stops. The council has the legal power to seek recompense for the removal of these items, which means your group could be charged.
YUSU Newsletter
The YUSU Newsletter makes it's way to all of our members each Friday during term-time, so advertising in the newsletter is a great platform available to you.
You just need to send your content to Sophie Almack, Communications Projects Coordinator (External) - s.almack@yusu.org
50 words of copy
A graphic to go alongside or a picture you have permission to use
By Wednesday at 12pm each week during term time.
Note: We cannot always guarantee to advertise your events and activities in the newsletter, but our marketing team will do what they can and email with you some alternatives.
Digital Screens
You can advertise on the Plasma 'RedBus' Screens located in high footfall all across the West Campus. You can design an advert to feature on the slideshow of images across the screens. Please email the content following the guidelines below to marketing@yusu.org
Image Requirements
File Type: JPG // File Size: 1080 x 1920 Portrait // Colour Mode: RGB // Rotation: File should be delivered in landscape with content 90 degrees clockwise.
Video Requirements
Video Codec/Container: H.264/QuickTime (>MOV) // Audio Stream: Encode without audio stream (empty audio streams not supported) 25 // Frame Rate: 25 fps // Data Rate: 6,000 - 8,000 kbps // File Size: <40MB // Resolution: 1080 x 1920 Portrait or if at lower resolution, at the same aspect ratio to avoid blank black space above and below the content // Rotation: File should be delivered in landscape with content 90 degrees clockwise // Duration: 10 seconds - please ensure no additional frames take the file over 10 seconds by any amount at all.
Background Colour Schemes
Please note that white colours can display extremely brightly on our screens, and therefore adverts with large amounts of white space can appear overly bright for the environment many of our panels are in. We recommend that you avoid having large amounts of white space in your content.
Note: there is no guarantee that we will be able to upload your image to the plasma screens. External companies pay to advertise through these screens, so it depends how busy the slideshow is at the time, as we can’t have too many on simultaneously as it can undermine a company’s investments. We will do our best to upload your images whenever possible.
Officer Team
The Students’ Union Officers can spread the word about your event through their blogs, tweets, Facebook pages and so on. All you need to do is let them know. The best person to email is Rohan on activitiesofficer@yusu.org, or your Volunteering Officer to advertise volunteering activity at volunteering@yusu.org
Vanbrugh Stalls
Four stalls are available in the foyer from 12-2pm during term-time, for student groups to promote their activities. These stalls can be booked through the College Administrator (vanbrugh@york.ac.uk) on a first-come, first-served basis, and are a popular feature at lunchtimes.
Network
There are over 200 societies at York - consider collaborating with some of them, not forgetting our other volunteering projects, liberation networks and sports clubs! Collaborating means more ideas and more contacts; a bigger team and a bigger budget. Reach out to other groups and see what you can come up with! You can find each group's @yusu.org email address on their page on the YUSU Website.
Student Media
Make use of our fantastic YUSU Media Groups, They could give your event a shoutout, run a feature on your successes, or provide you with more substantial advertising services. Get in touch with Nouse, Vision, URY, and/or YSTV to see what you can come up with together.
Word of Mouth
The original social media! Use lecture shout outs to tell people about your group and upcoming events and activities). Encourage your volunteers to tell as many people as possible about the group. If you want them to spread the word though, you’ll need to keep them active and interested! Provide incentives, and maintain contact with them. You could run a ‘bring a friend’ event, asking every member to bring someone else along to engage more people.
Feedback
Evaluating your marketing methods and techniques is key to further developing your group. There are various ways you can find out what people really think of your group and how you can spread your message further. Consider creating a survey (use Google Forms or Survey Monkey) and sending it out to your society members to complete. You could do this annually, at the beginning and end of your committee’s tenure, or even after each event to see how people found it, in order to improve next time.
Alumni
The University’s Office of Philanthropic Partnerships and Alumni (OPPA) have a programme called YuConnect, which is aimed at helping you stay in touch with your alumni. If you use them well, you could make massive gains; they might be able to mentor you or your members, and even provide work experience, internships, or graduate opportunities. They might also support you in any projects you decide to run through their knowledge or even a financial donation.
Here’s our step-by-step guide to connecting with your alumni, if your group hasn’t already:
Set up a Facebook or LinkedIn group
Promote it to recent graduates and your final year members, and ask them to spread the word to people they know who used to be part of the society. If people pass the message on, you’ll garner a pretty big network pretty fast. Please share the link with alumni@york.ac.uk, too - the Alumni Association will promote it.
Appoint an Alumni Officer
This person could be in charge of maintaining and growing your alumni Facebook group; putting on and promoting events to and for alumni; and be the first point of contact for alumni about goings-on in your society.
Take part in YuConnect News
The team condense student group news into a newsletter for all alumni, prioritised according to which societies they were part of at York - so tell the Alumni Association what you’re up to at alumni@york.ac.uk.
Questions?
Jasmine Pledger, Student Citizenship and Employability Development Coordinator - j.pledger@yusu.org
Rohan Ashar, Student Activities Officer - r.ashar@yusu.org
Alumni Office - alumni@york.ac.uk
Marketing Team - marketing@yusu.org