A question we hear a lot, most of all from local business owners: how do you decide what to feature? Is it pay-to-play? Do you cover everyone? What does it take to get on your page?
Fair questions.
CSRA Night & Day has grown over five years from a couple of date night posts on Facebook into a local community resource with meaningful reach across the Central Savannah River Area: about 800,000 monthly Facebook views and 300,000 monthly Instagram views. With that reach comes a steady stream of local businesses asking to be featured. We say yes to a lot of them. We say no to some. This post explains where the line is and how the process works.
The standard we hold ourselves to
Every piece of content we publish has to clear three filters.
It has to be positive. We don’t write hit pieces. We don’t review badly-rated places. We don’t drag bad service or call out specific staff. If a place isn’t good enough to feature, we don’t feature it. The CSRA is too small a community for tear-downs to be useful, and plenty of other places online are happy to do that work. We’re trying to do the opposite.
It has to be helpful. A feature should help locals make a decision: where to eat, what to do this weekend, where to take the in-laws when they visit, where to bring the kids when it’s been raining for three days. If a piece of content doesn’t help someone make a real-world plan, it doesn’t earn a spot on our page.
It has to be community-serving. We exist to amplify the local CSRA: small businesses, locally-owned restaurants, family operations, hidden spots, neighborhood institutions. We’re not a corporate billboard. National chains and franchise operators fit now and then, but we lean hard toward independent local.
If a request, business, or event doesn’t meet all three of those filters, we pause it or turn it down.
What we look for
New openings. A new restaurant, bar, coffee shop, retail shop, or service business that’s been open for at least a few weeks (we don’t post day-of openings; they’re too risky for everyone, including the new business) and is ready to handle a wave of attention.
Hidden gems. The spots locals have known about for years but that don’t show up on tourism pages. The hole-in-the-wall taqueria with the unhinged michelada. The garden patio behind a Craftsman bungalow that nobody mentions. The bar where the regulars know the bartender’s kids’ names.
Fresh and unique experiences. Trivia nights, axe throwing, escape rooms, cooking classes, art studios, cocktail-making workshops: anything that gives locals a thing to do that isn’t another dinner out.
Cocktails and elevated dining. The CSRA has gotten a lot more interesting on the cocktail front in the last few years. We pay attention to bar programs, seasonal drink lists, mixology-forward spots, and restaurants where the food is doing something the rest of the area isn’t.
Seasonal and festive content. Christmas markets, Easter egg hunts, summer concert series, Halloween events, Masters Week guides for locals trying to dodge the chaos. Anything that’s a moment in the calendar.
Family-friendly outings. Parks, splash pads, library events, free or nearly-free things to do with kids, family restaurants where the kids menu isn’t an afterthought.
Live music and events. Anything from outdoor amphitheater concerts to small acoustic sets at a coffee shop. We favor events that are accessible: affordable, family-friendly when possible, easy to get to without traffic chaos.
What we don’t feature
The list of things we won’t cover is short but firm: sexual content of any kind (pole dancing classes are fine; adult-only entertainment venues are not); strong political messaging; religious content with an agenda (church-hosted events are welcome if they’re community-focused and neutral in tone); businesses with poor reputations or operational issues, unless they’re under new ownership and have changed how they operate; and anything we haven’t been to or vetted. No exceptions on that last one.
The mechanics of getting featured
Reach out. The cleanest way is via the Submit Your Business page. You can also email hello@csranightandday.com.
We review. Expect a few days. We’re a small operation; we don’t have a 24-hour intake desk. If your timing is sensitive (a grand opening, a one-time event), let us know and we’ll move it up.
Vetting. We look at your existing online presence: your social media, your reviews, your website. We’re looking for legitimate operation, decent ratings (or new ownership turning things around), no major red flags, family-friendly enough.
A visit. For most features, we visit before publishing. This isn’t always possible (events in particular), but for restaurant and venue features, we tend to either visit or have a trusted local source confirm before we post.
Approval. For featured businesses, we share the draft post before it goes live. You can review the photos, suggest copy edits, fix anything that’s wrong. Once you approve, we post.
Free vs. paid
Most coverage on CSRA Night & Day is free. We feature local businesses we like, restaurants we’ve been to, events we think locals should know about, and we don’t charge for that organic coverage.
Money comes in for paid extras: giveaways ($75 for local businesses), weekly event sponsorships, directory listings, sponsored guides, and partnership content with tourism boards or larger organizations.
The rule we hold to: we always label sponsored content and write it in the same voice as our organic content. We don’t rewrite a sponsored feature in cheerleader mode because money changed hands.
What this means for locals reading
If you see something featured on CSRA Night & Day, you can trust three things: (1) we’ve been to it or vetted it, (2) we think it’s good enough for our friends to go to, and (3) if there was money involved in the post, it’s labeled.
We have featured a few hundred local business owners over the years. Some paid for placements; most didn’t. All of them met the same standards.
Have a place we should know about? Submit it on the Submit Your Business page or email hello@csranightandday.com.
