In my efforts to better serve my audience, I started using Modern Tribe’s free Events Calendar WordPress plugin to promote writing, blogging, publishing, speaking and social media events. I selected it after researching at least six free and premium plugins. It was pretty comprehensive and very easy to use.
Modern Tribe’s Events Calendar WordPress Plugin Review
Here are the features that captured my attention:
1. Ease of use. It looks like a standard WordPress dashboard so there was no learning curve to enter event details.
2. It easily integrates seamlessly into your site’s design so you have a consistent look and feel throughout your site.
3. Visitors have two calendar views: event calendar or list (shown above).
4. Upcoming Event (shown above) listing allows you to view upcoming events as a list, which make for easy for visitors to click on events in which they are interested.
5. They offer a multiple sidebar widgets to display your events. I have not yet included this on my site because I have not gotten this far with my calendar.
6. The calendar looks great on your mobile phones.
With all of these cool options you get for free, why would anyone BUY the PRO option? Here’s why I bought it.
1. Recurring events. This saves time on entering events every day, week, month, etc.
2. Venue View. Many conferences and events are held at McCormick Place in Chicago. If you wanted to find out about everything happening at that location, you can check out McCormick place instead of scrolling through the calendar. The image below was borrowed from Modern Tribe’s site.
3. Google/ICal calendars. Easily import your events to Google or iCal.
I also purchased their Community Events plugin so my fellow writers, bloggers, publishers, speakers and social media professionals can easily enter their own events. Ease of use was very important to me as many people are not tech savvy and I wanted them to be comfortable entering their event details.
With the Facebook Events plugin, which I haven’t started using yet, I can import events directly from specific pages to my calendar. This save loads of time on entering information.
Modern Tribe also created Eventbrite Tickets and WooTickets for people interested in selling tickets directly from their sites. Since my primary goal is event promotion, I am unable to speak on these plugins. However, I do want to make you aware that these options are available if you want to manage your own ticket sales or get paid as an affiliate.
Marcie’s Wish List for Events Calendar
For as much as I really appreciate this plugin, there are two features I wish the Events Calendar Pro plugin offered. First, it would be great if events were automatically sent to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as soon as the event was published.
Second, I think Modern Tribe should offer a free and premium payment option for community users. In the near future, I am going to offer a pay-to-post option on one of my sites and I will need premium users to enter their payment information to share the good stuff.
Overall, I am digging this plugin and hope to make a great impact in the writing, blogging, publishing, speaking and social media worlds with my calendar.
If you are interested in Modern Tribe’s plugins, buy them before May 31, 2013. Prices are increasing in June.
Do you use have an event calendar on your site? Which plugin or program do you use? Which features do you appreciate most? What can be changed? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.