By sending regular communications to each member of The Chicago Network, we make a promise: “We know you’re busy. We know your inbox is full. We won’t waste your time. We promise.” In order to keep that promise and show proper deference to the status and accomplishments of our membership, we do everything we can to maintain standards that position our newsletter as best-in-class; simply put, if we’re not 100% certain that any single sentence in our newsletter isn’t worth the time of over 550 of Chicago’s busiest and most accomplished women, we don’t publish it. Because sharing the success of our members is a critical part of our purpose and mission at The Chicago Network, for the first time, we are sharing with you the internal newsletter guidelines that have allowed us to reach the exceptional metrics we have maintained for years. We hope that these guidelines will empower member teams and The Chicago Network to share more inspiring stories about each of our members than ever before.
Submission Guidelines
Where We Get Our Content:
- Direct member submissions through our submissions
form. - Alerts:
- The TCN team utilizes a tool that automatically alerts us of new online content containing member names and the names of member organizations. While useful, this tool is not comprehensive; the best way to ensure that your news is considered for publication in our next newsletter is to have your team submit it to us directly.
- We are not able to keep tabs on individual publications for member related content, so even if your news was featured by a respected publication or news outlet, please do not hesitate to send a submission to the TCN team.
Where to Submit:
- All submissions should be sent via our simple submissions form at tcn.link/submit.
Submission Content:
-
We typically publish:
- Short, one-paragraph snippets on:
- Significant member / member organization announcements.
- Significant member / member organization media appearances, features, quotes or articles in well known publications, websites, television or radio stations in which the member or member organization is the focus.
- Member board appointments and new roles.
- Member and member organization awards.
- Events related to members or member companies that are:
- Free or substantially discounted (beyond waived booking, platform, or reservation fees) for TCN members.
- Free from strong calls to action, extensive sales copy, copy in all caps, or busy promotional images.
- Links to editorials and opinion pieces written by members in well-known publications.
- Listings for high level (VP+) roles at member organizations, or high level roles that member organizations are working to fill (EG a role that a member recruitment firm has been contracted to fill).
- Submissions that:
- Cover topics that are non-controversial and not politically charged.
- Contain adequate context from which our team may write a synopsis (especially important if the linked source is pay-walled).
- Short, one-paragraph snippets on:
Publication:
- Submission is not a guarantee of inclusion; TCN reserves the right to determine which member submissions will be published. Submitters may or may not be notified of this decision prior to publication.
- Submissions are subject to editing at the discretion of the TCN team, without notice, prior to publication.
- We highly encourage members to consider posting in our private LinkedIn group if they have news to share that does not fit within the submission guidelines above.
Editorial Guidelines:
- We generally expect to edit most submissions, and as such, we do not ask that submissions adhere to strict editorial guidelines; however, if you wish to help our team process your submission quickly and efficiently, we are grateful for submissions that abide by the following guidelines:
- The first mention of a member name should follow this format: Full Name (Title, Company).
- If a submission is about an organization, not an individual member, the individual member name(s) should follow: “Company X (Member 1 Name, Title, Member 2 Name, Title) released an article”
- Each subsequent reference to the member should be by last name only.
- Dates & Times:
- March 8th
- March 8, 2021
- 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM CST
- Use “and” instead of an ampersand.
- Links indicated in the copy: “Company X released (an article | https://ArticleLinkHere),” not appended to the end: “Company X released an article. Click here to read more.”
- Titles Should be Written in Title Case.
- Submissions should preferably be no more than a few short sentences.