The Media Coach | 12th April 2024 |
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Building and Protecting your Reputation |
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| Hi John,
As I mentioned last week, I was a "costume finisher" at the London Landmarks Half Marathon last weekend. I was dressed as Henry VIII.
I don't think he ever completed a half marathon during his reign, and given the weight of the costume (not to mention his own reported girth), I'm not surprised in the least.
Anyway, along with several other volunteer historical figures (King Richard, Dick Turpin, Ann Boleyn and Florence Nightingale), I helped to welcome over eighteen thousand runners over the line. Well done to each and every one of them. |
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| Every so often a pal of mine comes over from the USA with his lovely wife, who hails from West London, as do I.
We meet up, usually in a pub, and tell each other stories about music, films, and what it used to be like in Putney and Fulham.
I said if he sent me a picture of our lunch yesterday, I'd add him to this email list and post the picture. So here we are! |
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| My speaker coaching programme has opened up again, and four places are available now.
If you'd like to raise your game, get more speeches and earn higher fees, just get in touch for a chat.
But hurry - the places go very quickly, and there won't be any more available for several months. |
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| My guest in the radio show this week is Jon Garstang.
He has a fascinating story about his career in animal welfare.
His ideas have been adopted in a number of countries, most recently across schools in Greece.
He's passionate about building connections between humans and the animals we care for.
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 Professor Peter Higgs, who died this week.
While he may not be known to many people, he was an absolute legend among scientists. His theory about what binds the Universe together, which other scientists also worked on at the same time, sparked a 50-year search for the Holy Grail of physics - a particle which has become known as the Higgs Boson.
The particle was finally discovered in 2012 by scientists using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland. It completed what is called the standard model of particle physics.
A famously shy man, he told journalists: "It's very nice to be right sometimes."
His work earned him the Nobel Prize for physics a year later. He was an absolute genius. |
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| The MediaMug of the week goes to RCG Media, a Mexican news TV channel.
They were showing coverage of this week's solar eclipse, and asked viewers to send in their photos and clips.
However, they failed to check the images, and as a result, broadcast images of a viewer's testicles rather than the moon covering the sun.
The male host continued listing off cities where the eclipse was seen, but one of his female colleagues let out a gasp as she realised what they had shown.
After realising what they had done, the X-rated clip was quickly taken off screen, and the male host explained how their desire to show viewers’ own footage had led to the mistake.
Oh dear.
No, I'm not posting the image.... |
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Speaking Tip of the week - Don't overload your audience |
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| A common complaint (if I may call it that) from audiences is "there was too much information to take in". If that's what you hear from your audiences, don't take it as a compliment. It's a problem. Too many speakers try to cram in huge amounts of information, whether or not they are using slides.
One speaker recently justified it to me by saying "I gave them a copy of my slides to take home". So I asked him "If you receive a copy of a speaker's slides, how likely is it that you will read them later?". His expression said it all. Hardly anyone ever looks at handouts after an event. They are added to a pile of paper in an office before getting thrown away in a clear-out several months later.
Full-day conferences compound the problem. Few of us can remember more than a fraction of what we hear. The more information speakers try to deliver, the less gets through. The solution is obvious. Don't tell them too much. Alas, speakers are hampered by a couple of fears; the fear of appearing ignorant; the fear of being caught out by an expert in the audience. Both fears lead to "information overload" as speakers try to pack in enough stuff to make them look like real experts.
There's also the fear that you will patronise an audience by telling them too little, or something which they already know. Don't worry about it.
If you speak well, tell great stories, and have a simple, relevant message, your audience will love you. |
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Media Tip of the week - It's about....timing |
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| If you have control over when you release a news story, you need to give it some careful thought. The days have long gone when you could hide an embarrassing story under a blanket of news about something else (that tactic is always spotted, and makes the bad news even more prominent).
However, you can and should consider when to release what you hope is a positive story.
If you are staging a "press event", plan it in the late morning to catch the attention of the early evening news bulletins. If the event has a visual element to it, this is even more important.
There's no need to give broadcasters more than a few days' warning, since they work to short timescales. Do make sure that you look ahead to any other events that may clash, and take the assembled hacks somewhere else. For example, it would have been madness to stage a product launch in the City of London at the same time as a major witness was speaking to the Post Office enquiry. But guess what? Somebody did. You won't remember who it was, since no press turned up.
If you're aiming for coverage in a monthly magazine, you need to deliver the information to them several months in advance. The Christmas issues are created in the summer, so it's no good pitching a new range of tree decorations in October. Weekly journals are finalised a couple of days before publication, but daily papers, radio and TV can squeeze items in at a few hours notice.
It's all down to timing. If you're too late with your news, it may never appear. |
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Social Media Tip of the week - Piggyback Now! |
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| Piggybacking, sometimes called news-jacking, is the practice of following up a news story with related material of your own.
For example, if a news story breaks about bad leadership you can follow it up with a comment, and a piece called "Five tips for modern leaders"
It's a great way of putting yourself into the news stream. But there's a caveat. You have to act incredibly fast.
Social media, as you know, is very fast-moving. If you hesitate, even for a few minutes, the opportunity may be lost.
If you're able to think and type very quickly, then you may be able to respond in the moment. However, it's much easier to have some prepared comments handy so that you can simply pull out a few that are relevant to the news story.
Whenever you have a little time to spare, add to or amend your file of "instant responses". One day they will be extremely useful. |
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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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