The massive technology conference Techweek references past attendees and sponsors to illustrate how popular and illustrious the event is. If you don’t have big names to reference you can include testimonials and reviews from past attendees to create the same effect. One study showed that 79% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
“Fundraising proceeds will directly support Reel Asian’s year-round and festival youth programs that help culturally diverse and newcomer youth from the GTA examine issues of identity and belonging through media arts, while providing leadership opportunities, education and job-skills training in film and creative production.”
Put the tastiest bits upfront in the summary
When you register, you’ll be asked to provide a full description (up to 2000 characters) and a short description or event summary/excerpt (up to 300 characters).
In the summary, tell us what will happen at the event and what is interesting about it.
Include the most interesting and most important information in the summary as this becomes the first paragraph on your event’s web listing. It is read first and needs to engage people quickly.
Give us information, not opinion or rhetoric
Avoid empty, superfluous words that don’t give the reader useful information. For example, ‘a fun and exciting celebration of chemistry’ followed by a list of the organisations involved doesn’t tell us much beyond narrowing the topic to chemistry.
An alternative might be ‘hear about the chemistry behind the hole in the ozone layer, and experiment with and taste the chemistry in cooking’ or ‘hear a prize winning scientist talk about her career in chemistry, her science heroes and what the future holds for her field’.
Don’t rely on adjectives like ‘fun’, ‘interesting’ and ‘exciting’. Let the things you’re planning speak for themselves.
If your initiative has a suite of different activities and events, give examples
Don’t be tempted by a wide range of topics and activities to over-generalise. You still need to provide punters with enough information to tempt them.
For example, ‘an exciting celebration of all things science’ doesn’t really say much. An alternative might be ‘working scientists talk about the science that has inspired them, such as the discovery of the Wollemi pine, Australia’s role in astronomy, and the invention of needleless vaccinations’. An astronomy enthusiast might pass over the first version but look into the second.
Highlights and examples make the event tangible. They also provide a wider range of words relevant to the event that can be identified by the website’s search engine.
