HarborCountry.org Events Submission Policy December 3, 2007 |
To
have your Event successfully published, please read the following policy |
| Chamber Members These policies have been developed for the online Event Submission System for Chamber Members which is accessed at the Member Login area: http://www.harborcountry.org/login - Requires Member ID. If you do not have or know your Member ID, contact the Chamber Office. Non-Members If you are not a member of the Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce, these requests will be published to the site at the discretion of the Chamber office. This service is intended to cover events within the 8 official towns of the Harbor Country region. You may submit your event listing request for consideration by using the following form: Click Here |
1. Qualifying Events: The Chamber defines Events as venues that offer public entertainment, are of educational and informational value, or of community service/interest will be considered for publication to the harborcountry.org site. White sales, deals, discounts, special sales promotional offers, close-outs, etc. do not qualify for Events listings, and should more appropriately be posted in Hot Deals (Chamber Members only). Visitor Resource Information - This section on the Events/This Weekends page (bottom half) is reserved for public entertainment, educational and recreational establishments. These static listings are posted as a public service at the discretion of the Chamber office and are not intended for continuous/ongoing events submitted by event organizers. |
| 2. Who May Submit Events: All Chamber Members in good standing (in-area and out-of-area) may submit events for publication to the web site. This is a free service and benefit to our membership. As a public service, the Chamber office at its discretion will publish Events requested from non-member organizations or outlying areas that offer benefit and service to our members and visitors. |
| 3. Event Organizers are responsible for length, accuracy, timeliness and proofing of Event content. The Chamber office will not proof content once it has been submitted and will not be held responsible for errors or inaccuracies. Event organizers are encouraged to submit their event well in advance to maximize publicity and exposure to help insure success of the event (See item #10). |
| 4. Content Review: All Event submissions are reviewed by the Chamber Office for appropriateness and compliance to these posting policies. Any submissions that do not comply with these policies will not be published. This review is only for the purpose of monitoring content, and does not extend to spell checking or proofing. |
| 5. Content Not Approved: Multiple postings (spamming) of the same event, are not permitted. The Chamber reserves the right to decline any Event and/or content that it deems inappropriate for our members, visitors, or is not consistent with the Chamber’s mission. |
| 6. Text Copy – Maximum length description is 250 words. This is a generous space for copy and should be sufficient to concisely describe an Event. We cannot publish entire press releases that exceed this length. It is strongly recommended that members who have a lengthy itinerary on their venue to list it on their own web site. The Event Submission form accommodates a hyperlink where external sites can be linked to your additional supporting Event information. We must limit the length of Event description text to manage the overall length of the Event listings page and retain visitor interest. |
| 7. Images – One digital image for each Event posting can be included, at no charge. The image must not exceed our proportional specification of 120 x 90 pixels (landscape)and a maximum file size of 14k. Members can use the online Event Submission Form to upload images that meet this specification. Non-Members can email the image in .jpeg format to chamber@harborcountry.org only if you can send it within these specs. If you do not have an image editor where you can edit your image, you can attach it in an email in .jpeg format to webmaster@harborcountry.org – your email must also state the name and dates of your event so it can be assigned to the correct posting. The Chamber reserves the right to reject images that are not appropriate for the site. |
| 8. Editorial Style: Event submissions are reviewed for content and editorial style before posting. The USE OF ALL CAPS or Use Of Proper Case (Title Case) Words In A Sentence (First Letter Capitalized) is not an acceptable content style for Event postings. Events listings are posted in contiguous block style, and to compress page length, indentations and double spaced paragraphing will be ignored. In order to maintain a professional and consistent style to our web pages, the Chamber reserves the right to edit postings to comply with this editorial style. |
| 9. Placement: Events are placed chronologically by date within the online Event Calendar. No other priority is given to event submissions. The Event Content Management System that generates the Events web pages will automatically calculate Event time frames and place them appropriately in the following pages: www.harborcountry.org/events - www.harborcountry.org/weekends The "Find Event by Name" drop-down feature on the www.harborcountry.org/events page is strictly reserved for major Chamber sponsored events and venues. No other event listings in this primary feature will be considered. |
| 10. Publication to Site. Events will be queued for review and once approved will be published to the site within 3 business days. Every effort will be made to publish your Event on a timely basis; however there may be other priorities, particularly in the busy season that may cause unavoidable delays. For this reason we ask members to make every attempt to plan ahead and submit Events well in advance of your Event date. The HarborCountry.org web site receives a range of 300,000 to 750,000 page views a month depending on the season. The Events pages are among the highest viewed pages on the site. Our statistics show that Events that take advantage of this high visibility 60 days or more in advance are more successful and have a higher turn out. |
| 11. Corrections/Updates: Once your Event is submitted, all updates/changes/deletions must be called in or emailed to the Chamber office: 269-469-5409 – chamber@harborcountry.org . Members cannot retrieve existing Event postings for further updates or corrections. For events that have been promoted for a length of time and have to be cancelled, it is recommended that a revision is submitted to the Chamber which announces the cancellation rather than delete/remove the listing. This will notify visitors who had been planning on the event with appropriate information about the event cancellation, and/or a reschedule. |
| 12. Submission by Mail/Fax: If you do not have Internet access you can contact the Chamber office who can provide you with an Event Submission Form you can mail in or send by fax. You can also download the form at: http://www.harborcountry.org/events/HC-EventSubmissionForm.htm Please note that Events submitted by phone or using this form by fax or email is not the preferred method and may be delayed as it will require more office resource time to process. |
Harbor
Country® Chamber of Commerce 530 S. Whittaker St. Suite F New Buffalo, MI 49117 Office: 269-469-5409 Fax: 269-469-2257 Email: chamber@harborcountry.org |
| Updated May 10, 2008 |