Awareness Weeks in Your Organization - Why and Hows

Awareness Weeks are just that: raising awareness so more people hear about your organization and you're not stuck in obscurity.

Has your organization ever held a weeklong event targeted at raising awareness for your organization on campus? If not, here are some ways to incorporate them in your organization:

Hold a publicized event
Create and plan an event that will increase awareness. Make it something exciting, or give away something really cool. Have a booth in a central building all week for people to sign up.

We did a weeklong competition for teams that resulted in the “winner” getting his head shaved! It helped that our entrants were well known on campus. The winner was a professor!

Post fliers
I caught this tip from someone in a different organization that holds events for all of campus: comedy shows, movie nights, pumpkin carving contests, etc. He told me, “Hang two fliers beside each other in central locations. People tend to notice them more.”

Social Media Blasts
Create a Facebook page specifically for your org, then post to social media 2x daily about: member profiles, tips on professional networking, about your organization, etc. Make “Likes” how you measure your effectiveness.

This can raise awareness in a peripheral fashion. On your personal page, link to these posts and share them weekly. This makes you “known” for being in that org, so that people are more likely to talk to you about getting involved.

Why do this?
These three steps are the most actionable of them. It all aims to create awareness and publicize your organization. This is great right before a big event your org is holding because more people will hear about it because now they’re “connected” to your organization. 

If no one knows your organization, how will you gain traction with: new members, successful events, great people to have in your network?

Awareness Weeks are hot in my organization, are they in yours? If so, what are things you could add to this list?