By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate

This past week I had the pleasure of visiting with Mike Gaymon and the entire staff at the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce. During my visit, I tagged along with Mike to his weekly radio appearances. We’ve heard so much recently about the struggles of traditional media and the rise of new media. I could digress for pages, but I’ll spare you (just this one time). Suffice it to say, traditional media isn’t dead. And it shouldn’t be ignored as a means to communicate with the larger community.

Mike regularly appears on three radio shows serving the Columbus region in Georgia. He is a dynamic personality, and it clearly comes through in his radio appearances. He could easily have a second career as a talk radio host. After absorbing Mike’s commentary over roughly forty five minutes of combined air time on three different radio stations, I never got once got the impression that I was listening to a Chamber executive. That is simply to say that what I heard wasn’t a Chamber stump speech or a glorified Chamber advertising opportunity. This was a community leader dedicating at least one hour of his week towards facilitating broad discussion on important issues. Mike is joined once a month by the City Manager of the Columbus Consolidated Government, while every other week he has a different accompanying guest. The topic of interest on the day I visited was the new Crime Prevention program in Columbus, with its new Director, Seth Brown, as Mike’s guest. Mike isn’t the only chamber executive that leverages radio as part of the Chamber’s internal marketing and community leadership. Dick Fleming at the St. Louis Chamber and Regional Growth Association hosts a twice-weekly radio show on KMOX.

Both Mike and Dick’s radio segments are available for download shortly after their original air time on their Chamber websites. If you think a radio segment might serve your Chamber and community well, reach out you local radio stations to search for a production partner, and listen to Mike and Dick’s segments to get a feel for the type on content and dialogue that has been successful.