Managing Your Front Pages

Though each of our local brands include a variety of channels (email, social, owned events and more), our core product is our event listings -- and the foundational element of each city's business is its site, specifically its home page. In order for our businesses to be successful, our sites must have the most complete and accurate event listings around -- and our home pages must be so impressive that potential advertisers will be wowed whenever they check them out.

Every Content Manager should own a daily repeating Asana task that reminds them to check the front pages for the next 10-14 days. We define a "front page" as the first page of events for your default shortcut (usually called All Events) on any given day. For example, the front page for today is your site's home page. 

Front Page Workflow

When you manage your front pages, you should check for all of the following:
  • Cancelled events
  • Duplicate events
  • Sold out events
  • Outdated lineups
    • This can often be a good reminder that you need to process the duplicate events for that venue.
  • Bad cover photos (text free images, incorrect images, etc)
  • Typos on primary event information (title, topline, etc)
  • Incorrect information (eg - wrong venue)
  • Anything else you see that needs to be updated
Our recommended workflow for checking your front pages is as follows:
  • Open a given day's front page in a window by itself. 
  • Check the day's events from the top down.
  • As you scroll down the page, hold command + N to open any event that you'll want to edit in a new tab. 
  • Continue moving down the page and opening all undesirable events in new tabs until you reach the bottom of the page.
  • Once you've reached the bottom of the page, address each of the tabs from right to left, closing each of them once you've taken the appropriate action.
  • Once you've closed all of the extra tabs, move onto the next day's listings.
Image Guidelines

When replacing images on your event listings, it's important to be mindful of our image guidelines:

If you use an image that you don't have the rights to use, we could get sued and have to pay a hefty fine. It's happened before. So, please be sure that your photos are sourced from:
Your event cover photos should be text free, low contrast, and cropped appropriately. Pro tip: use Image Preview (on your Mac) to quickly resize images; and be sure to use command + shift + 4 when taking screenshots to crop your images during capture.

Do312 recommends maintaining a shared Drive Folder (which all content employees can copy to their desktops) with a collection of frequently-used images for generic events -- such as: a mic stand on a stage for an open mic, or a group of yogis in downward dog for a yoga class.

Checking Your Header & Footer Links

When checking your front pages, you should also always check your Header and Footer links. Check out this article for more information on how to adjust these links when desired.

Adjusting Popularities

Your site's front pages should be the visual answer to the question of: What's going on tonight (or any given night)? To best accomplish this, you should take time every day to make sure your listings are ranked in the most sensible manner for your brand. To accomplish this, we recommend using Radmin's "Listings View", which you can read more about in this article.

A few things to look for when adjusting popularities include:
  • Placement of your advertised events
  • Placement of your giveaways
  • Any amazing events or hidden gems with popularity 1 that could use a boost
  • Ongoing or repeating events that are displayed in the main listings and whose popularity may be inflated due to giveaways or RSVPs
  • A diversity of content: Ideally, your front page should include a mixture of event categories, locations, prices, and venue capacities.
Want an extra set of eyes on your front pages? Feel free to hit up support@dostuffmedia.com at any time. We'll be happy to give them a review!
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