POSTING CALENDAR EVENTS

Welcome  Your first step in the process of becoming a freelance reviewer at Splash Magazines Worldwide is to post calendar events. It may seem tedious, but it is a very important feature of all or our worldwide sites.  The calendar will keep our readers coming back to the various Splash Magazines if it provides exciting, current, in depth and varied listings.  The calendar will also expose you to many things in your city that are usually available for you and a guest to attend. Attending the event is free, provided that you do a review on whatever it is you request.  In time, we will be bombarded by dozens of invitations each day from PR firms, but for now we need you to do your own harvesting of events to post in your cities Splash calendar.

Harvesting Events from the Web  One of the best beginning resources for gathering event information is through your local Visitors & Convention Bureau. Do a Google search for your city’s Visitors and Convention Bureau. Use any of the local resources that you currently use to find out what is happening in your city. You can also go to your address bar and type (your city’s name).com i.e. or and you will find calendars with information you can use  You can also check any other local websites that you know of that list events in the area to find events that Splash Magazines can include in the calendar: concerts, exhibitions, fashion shows, etc…

 Initially, after you have posted 20 events for your city’s calendar, you will have one credit which will allow you to request an event of your choice. It can be from the calendar or something you request on your own.  Posting a calendar event should take less than a minute.  The number of posts to get to go to a free event will decrease with the passage of time, and as you prove to us that you are doing the postings correctly and following all of our guidelines. The number will drop to 15, then 10, etc. The posting of these calendar events will always be important! Calendar Requirements

Calendar Posting Steps  Once you have harvested the events, happenings, etc. that you think would be interesting to include in the calendar &/or if you receive PR or other press releases in the inbox in Outlook do the following: *make sure you check and complete the PNRE box first, before adding new events that were harvested from the internet (PNRE will be explained later)  Open MS Word and your city’s Splash Magazines website.  Check the website to make sure that the event you are planning on posting is not already posted by looking at the calendar on your city’s website.  Check all the dates, if there are multiple dates, to make sure the event is not posted on any of the dates.  If the information is not already posted, select the information using the mouse to highlight the information or (ctrl-a) to select all. Then copy it using (ctrl-c), and paste the information using (ctrl-v) into a new Word document.

More Calendar Posting Steps  Create a title that is in Title Case (never ALL CAPS) You can do this by going to “Format” menu, select “change case,” and change to “Title Case.”  Also keep in mind that you need to have the entire title on one line with no paragraph returns, so everything will show when you copy and paste it into the title field late.  Always include clearly written information with who, what, when, where and why using all the information that is available.  If all of the pertinent information is not there, find the missing information by typing the key words ( title, subject, company, etc.) into GOOGLE. Keep in mind that the use of “ will minimize your search tremendously. i.e. “LA Splash” will come up with 29,500 but la splash will come up with 72,300,000! By putting the term in quotes, it will search for that combination as if they are one word. If not, either word anywhere in a document will be counted.  If the event description is not listed, give as much general information as you can. An example of this is if there is a concert at a club. The only information you have been given is the band name, ticket price, and starting time. When you go to post the event, under event description include the following: who, what, when, and where. Go to the venue website and get the address & phone #. If available, include an address that can direct you to buy a ticket.

More  Delete any press contact or private information  Delete any unnecessary information that is not of value to the readers  Make sure everything is aligned left  Make sure to use spell check  Have a calendar available for multiple day events.

Connect to the calendar website of your city  Put in the web address for your city followed by /calendar/cal_login.php  Put in the web address for your city followed by /calendar/cal_login.php /calendar/cal_login.php i.e.  For Los Angeles Splash Magazine Go to:  For New York Splash Magazine Go to:  For Chicago Splash Magazine Go to:  Etc…

-You'll see “Calendarix User Login”  Enter your Login and Password that you have chosen

Click on the "plus" on the top right-hand side of any date. Its easier to go to the date you are entering. This screen will appear

This Screen will Appear

And you will see this box appear  Enter Event Title – it should be in Title Case (not ALL CAPS)  Paste in Event Description box all the information about the event.  Put or URL (web address) in appropriate fields if available  Choose Category from pull down menu  Add Start Time (note pm or am),  NO END TIME – it takes up too much space  Add Date of event  When you’re including multiple days, never repeat the first day. For example, If the event is every Saturday for the next 3 weeks, click the Repeat button and choose 2 and Saturday from their drop down fields.  Finish by clicking Add Event

 Another example of repeating events is when the times differ on different days. Let’s say you have a play to post that starts June 1, 2006 and runs Thursday- Sunday for 7 weeks. The times are 8pm Thursday–Saturday and 2pm and 7pm on Sunday. Here is the first screen you would see after clicking on the plus sign to the right of June 1 st and how you would fill out the Add event popup.

Adding Multiple Days  You will click on the Repeat button  Then choose the number of days from the Repeat drop down that the play will repeat. There are 7 total days, so it repeats 6 times.  Then choose the day you want the item to repeat from the times every drop down menu. We are starting with Thursday.  Then click Add event

This is what you will see

Once you have entered the event go back to the calendar and click on the event you just entered

Now click on Copy Event

Now change the date, in this case to June 2, and click the repeat button and choose 6. Next, choose Friday from the drop down menu. Continue these steps for Saturday and Sunday with their respective times.

Procedures for Calendar Postings when you receive an from our office. (PNRE)   We will use the acronym PNRE in the header of our s to you which stands for: P: Post the event in the calendar section. N: Notify the sender that we have posted the event. R: Send an R.S.V.P. requesting tickets and indicating who would like to attend the event. It could be a generic/specific journalist or you. E: Post the event in our Event Manager program, so an enrolled journalist may see that the event is available online and have the ability to view and request the event. This only can be done once we receive a verification from the PR people that we have permission to attend the event.   Note - You need to carefully see what initials are in the beginning of the subject line. ONLY do the work for the initial indicated, i.e. P means Post only, PN means Post & Notify ONLY etc.

If there is a PN or PNRE on the we send you in the inbox  After posting an event, notify the PR contact that the event is online.  Make sure to blind CC on ALL s that you send out to send copy to Lawrence.  * A template is available for this purpose (make sure to change event title and date posted) so we can cover the event.

Sample Letter of Notification on Calendar Posting «Full_name_of_person»«Title_of_person»«Name_of_business»«Address_»«City_State_zip» Via « _Address» Dear «Greeting_name_Mr_or_Ms_or_first_name_», I have posted your «Name_of_EventTile_in_Calendar» event in the calendar section of (Name of City) Splash Magazine. You can view the posting at www(name of city)splash.com. Once there, go to the calendar on the left hand side of the page. Move your mouse over the dates of your event and you will see the title; click on the date of your event to see the summary and click at the bottom where it says Read more to see the full listing. www(name of city)splash.comwww(name of city)splash.com if you are personally interested I would like to arrange for myself and a guest to attend this event and to publish an article for you. If this is possible, let me know if you are not interested and there was a R in the PNR then - I would like to arrange for one of our journalists and a guest to attend this event and to publish an article for you. If this is possible, let me know I look forward to working with you in the future. All the best, Your name Journalist Splash Magazines Worldwide

 Please make the return address for the N (notify) letter of city)splash.com). of of city)splash.com  Once tickets have been confirmed, add the event into Event Manager. Procedures will be explained later. After you’ve learned how to set up an for your city

Congratulations!