Youve heard the quote a gazillion times:

"Charity begins at home."

But in this age of mass media, charity that begins at
home might also proceed straight to your bottom line--by
making visitors to your page or your business.

And best of all, the mass media--especially the news
media-- are ready, willing, and more than able to
partner with you.

Charity events and stories about community involvement
appeal to the media for a couple of reasons.

1. Theyre very sensitive to criticism that "You only
want to show bad news," and will contruct every effort to
show uplifting, positive stories whenever possible.

2. Its in their best interest to make goodwill by
acquiring part in community events.

3. In the case of radio and TV stations, they MUST show
that theyre serving the community. Otherwise, their
FCC license would be in jeopardy.

4. For the most part (there are exceptions), theyre
grand-hearted everybody who WANT to help others.

So, when you want to contruct new traffic or more
traffic to your business or website, ponder hosting
a fundraiser for a charity or community organization.
Let the media know youre involved through a news
release. Its fairly often a sizeably good idea to ask a high profile
human from the media to be your honorary chairperson.

Also, if possible, offer the media a story about
someone who has benefited from the charity. If you can
"humanize" the work the charity is doing, "put a human
face on it" so to speak, your chances of grasping
coverage (that is, publicity), will skyrocket.

And dont forget to look for opportunities to pre-
publicize your event, especially on radio talk shows.

Fundraisers and events that benefit the community
amount to a win-win-win situation. Obviously, the
charity gets funds and attention to their cause, the
station or newspaper gets points for its community
spirit, and you get publicity that would have cost you
thousands of dollars if you had to pay for it.

Early in my radio career, one of my friends used to
sign off his show
every day by telling his listeners this:

"Remember, do workable and youll always do well."

Its true in life. Its especially true when you want
to get free publicity in the media.