I was asked recently for a complete list of places where up and coming events should be listed. This is particularly relevant for me since I am running a number of workshops over the next month or so.  Based on the saying that you have to tell people something 7 times before they listen it is worth listing in a number of places even if you have an overlap of audience.  I would also recommend updating people as you get closer to the event.  Have a look at the following:

Eventbrite
A place to advertise your event and take bookings using paypal, credit card or paypal.  You can set early bird tickets as well as full price tickets which is useful.  You can upload your email contact list into Eventbrite and send emails directly from Eventbrite.

Facebook
Publish your event on your business page and / or link your facebook account and business page with Eventbrite to publish updates.  Don’t forget to share the event with your contacts and nearer the time, put an update about the event on your status with a link to the details.

LinkedIn
You can create an event on LinkedIn and send the details to your contacts.  Again, include a reminder update nearer the time. I think this works better if you have a good relationship with your contacts and a decent number of contacts. You can list events on the promotion page of any groups that you belong to, but this is a new feature of LinkedIn and I am not sure how effective it is at the moment (watch this space!)

Twitter
Set up scheduled tweets to advertise your event regularly during the weeks beforehand.  Be careful not to overdo it, you don’t want to annoy people so they turn you off, but do tweet at various times of the day and a few times a week to make sure that everybody gets a chance to see it – and thank anybody that retweets or forwards the message on. It is a good idea to direct people to the Eventbrite link that you have set up.

Business Scene
I have found success when I have registered events with Business Scene, there is no knowing who might be looking.  You can always link to the Eventbrite listing to get people to book.

4Networking
Over 36,000 members belong to this site and use it to participate in discussions, search for companies and advertise their own services.  There is a face to face networking side to the site, but it is worth joining for the forums and discussion even if you are not going to use it for face to face networking.  List your events under the forum ‘Blatant Adverts & Classified’.

Industry/ Geographically Specific
Are there sites that your audience will be looking at on which you can advertise events – or in your geographical area?  It is worth checking….

Your Email Newsletter
You do write an email newsletter,right? A great way of letting your contacts know about your latest events. You can also include special offers and discounts for your subscribers. Don’t forget to include useful information for your readers in your newsletters. They want to get something out of reading it, other than your latest events.

Your Website
Don’t forget that this is central to your marketing. All your future events should be listed – and don’t forget to remove those events that have past – or at least make it clear that you know the date is in past (otherwise it makes your website look old and ‘uncared for’)

What else?
Don’t forget the personal touch, picking up the phone and announcing at face to face networking sessions definitely works as well – but you may reach a larger audience using some of the methods given above.

Do you have any sites that should be added to the list?