FYMC Blog

To find your missing child, effective use of local media like town and neighborhood publications can create a bigger buzz that will drive bigger media to cover your story. You should focus on creating a strong relationship with local reporters because:

• Coverage in a local publication shows your story is not a hoax. As you use social media to build a community of people who do not know you personally, third party validation plays a big role in gaining their trust.
• Local reporters tend to be more sympathetic to your story.
• They will often cover the story several times, providing links you can use across your social media platforms.
• Your friends and neighbors, the people most likely to help in the search for your missing child, read the local papers.
• Coverage in local papers often catches the eye of bigger publications. Sometimes the story becomes a story by itself.

Finding missing children using video should be easy.  You don’t need to be a Hollywood director to create compelling video to help find missing children.  To engage and inspire the community of people looking for your missing child, all you need is a simple video camera or a phone that takes video and follow these simple guidelines:

• Be brief, keep it under two minutes.
• One message per video. Got more than one message? It’s a good thing to have lots of video.
• Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. A video from the heart means more than great product skills.

Most of all, don’t be intimidated.  You can do this.  Think of the videos you shot of your child’s first steps or first day at school.  You weren’t worried about what people thought of those videos. Don’t worry now. Be natural. It’s okay.

Sometimes the hardest thing is taking your own advice. This video explains why we chose to use simple videos with low production costs to help families find their missing children.