The Media Coach | 22nd December 2023 |
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Building and Protecting your Reputation |
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| Firstly, and most importantly, may I wish you the happiest of Christmases and the most wonderful of New Years. I thank you for your continued readership and support, and hope that you have found the advice useful this year.
I won't be bothering you next week, so I'll speak to you next in 2024.
I'm always keen to hear from you about what you liked, what you weren't sure about, and what you'd like more of, so feel free to drop me a line with your comments. I look forward to hearing from you.
I celebrated my birthday last weekend with a family meal at Ivy Asia. I'm always grateful to my family, and my wife Heather in particular, for making sure that I have a proper birthday celebration, and that it isn't swept up into Christmas events. Thanks! |
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| We bought tickets a year ago and finally went to see Peter Kay's one-ms man show at the O2 in London.
I won't give anything away, as he asked us not to, but the show was the best comedy act I've seen in years, and the finale was unbelievable.
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|  | | We also made our regular trip to the Half Moon pub in Putney to see Ralph McTell's Christmas Charity concert.
Many people only know Ralph for his iconic song "Streets of London", which we all sang with him, but he has written a huge store of songs, some of which are so well-known on the folk circuit that that they appear in music books as "Traditional, several centuries old" |
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| Not all of the coaching sessions I gave away last week were taken up.
The three people who applied will each get a free session.
I'm giving away two more half-hour coaching sessions for anyone who needs any help with their speaking. I'll pick two at random from any emails received up until the 31st of December.
To respond, simply email me at alan@mediacoach.co.uk, with the subject line "Free coaching". Good luck! |
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| My guest in the radio show this week is HP Gundersen, leader of The Last Hurrah (!!)
With a career that stretches back to 1973, The Last Hurrah (!!) has been HP's main activity since 2020, when the start of the pandemic saw him leave the city of Bergen and move to a former fishing village in west Norway with his pianist wife Cecilie Leganger.
Setting up a studio in their basement, a new era began when, despite the cessation of normal social activity, a close circle of musician friends who suddenly had a lot of free time on their hands visited frequently to jam and write songs.
It was a fascinating discussion about music and an idyllic lifestlye.
Hear our chat in the in the radio show. |
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MediaMaestro, MediaMug of the Week |
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| The MediaMaestro is the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT), a wonderful institution, which owes much of its success to the popularity of the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life"
Allison Gardner the chief executive of Glasgow Film, decided to add It's a Wonderful Life to the GFT film schedule during the 1990s.
She recalled: "People had become familiar with it from TV over the years, and when we found a print we thought it would be great to show it in a cinema. A few years later the film distributor Park Circus picked it up and started distributing it."
"I think around 2008 or 2009 was when we really started to make it a big part of the schedule. The peak number we had was 52 showings of it one December."
It is screened at the cinema up until Christmas Eve each year, and since 2005 the GFT has sold around 130,000 tickets, with some film fans returning to watch it every year as a Yuletide tradition.
Mrs Gardner believes that the key appeal of the film lies in the story and message running through it, with James Stewart's character shown an alternative life where he never existed by his guardian angel, Clarence.
She explained: "I think it's a very GFT film, and a very Glasgow film. It's dark, it's about suicide, it's anti-capitalist - in that it's all about co-operation and community - and I think that explains the cross-generational appeal it has."
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| The MediaMug of the week is Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, which suffered global outages for just over an hour on Thursday.
The hashtag #TwitterDown started trending within minutes of reports of the outages emerging.
But the outage was short-lived, with users able to access the platform again after just over an hour.
Since Elon Musk bought the platform, it has been suffering from a loss of advertising revenue. At an event in New York last month, he accused companies that have joined an ad boycott of the site formerly known as Twitter of trying to blackmail him.
"Go [expletive] yourself," the billionaire said in an interview.
He has also been accused of allowing antisemitic posts next to advertising.
Not looking good is it? |
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Speaking Tip of the week - 'Tis the season |
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| Now is a good time to think about dumping parts of your speeches. Why? Because things change. Audiences don't age, but you do, which means that your references slowly lose their connection with them. Also, your topic changes. There's new research, which may contradict or amend what you tell people.
I review all of my speeches in the first week of a New Year. I dump at least a third of the stories, references and ideas. I add in new material, and sometimes change the message in the light of new research. One of the easiest ways is to Google every assertion you make. That's what your audience will do. If you find reliable (key word there) information that is different to what you say, then you should alter your speech.
Last year, I was speaking at an event with an expert on change management. I asked her how long she'd been doing exactly the same speech. "Ten years" she said. I made no comment, but you can guess what I was thinking.
Don't be like that. Take a long, hard look at your material when you have a little down time, and be ruthless about removing out-of-date information.
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Media Tip of the week - All I want for Christmas.. |
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| "is my two front teeth" as the old song goes. OK, you are too young to remember the ditty, so take my word for it. However, if you asked a TV or radio producer what they want for Christmas, the response will very likely be "A guest to talk to".
Over the Christmas and New Year period, the media still operates, but guests are hard to find. It is often the easiest time to get on air, and because the audiences tend to be large, it can be a very good time too.
So, if you receive a call from a journalist, asking if you might be available for a chat in the next few days, say "yes" - even if it means missing a couple of hours dozing on the sofa in front of a repeat of that comedy show that you never really liked anyway. |
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Social Media Tip of the week - Ten ways to give love |
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| It's the season of love and goodwill. Rather than promoting your products and services on Facebook, LinkedIn and Insta, why not try giving a little love to build online relationships? Here are ten ways
- Retweet messages that you find valuable or inspiring
- Post links to useful blog posts
- Comment on blogs that you've enjoyed
- Offer to place articles from guest bloggers on your blog
- Respond to YouTube videos with your own video message
- Quote the wisdom of experts in your field
- Interview experts via audio or video
- On X (Twitter) recommend people to follow
- Act as a hub/curator for valuable information on your topic
- Write recommendations on LinkedIn
Of course, the more love you give online, the more you will receive.
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Looking for a speaker coach? |
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The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk." |
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