Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Last month, an NFL player with the New York Jets made the headlines, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the sports section of the Sunday newspaper. Instead, Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis’ heated argument, and abrupt ending, to an interview with New York City radio host Mike Francesa made headlines on countless sports blogs and PR industry outlets.
During the interview, Francesa focused his attention and questions on a particular play Revis made during the game against the Miami Dolphins where he intercepted a pass and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown. Replays during and after the game showed that Revis may have interfered with the pass originally intended for a Miami Dolphins player. While the referees never called it during the game, Francesa was calling it during his interview, accusing Revis of the penalty and pressing the issue to the point where the interview was interrupted by a Jets PR person and ended abruptly. Per the advice of his PR representative, Revis hung up the phone to end the interview.
Ending an interview early is never a good idea. In an article on Ragan.com about this incident, Brad Philipps wrote that ending an interview “always makes the story bigger” and “gives credence to the charges made against you.” He also notes that the host will usually look better, while the guest and the PR representative will look unprofessional.
How could this situation have been prevented or possibly managed better? We have shared countless tips on how to “master the interview” and “how to give a good phone interview with media” on our blog. After reading about Revis’ story, we want to share a few additional tips that may be useful for you to consider when preparing for your next interview.
- Know the reporter before the interview. Do your research on the reporter and see how they have covered other stories or interviewed previous guests. This will give you an idea of the type of questions they may ask you during your interview.
- Prepare and practice your answers for the most difficult questions. When preparing for an interview, don’t focus solely on knowing the key messages to aid in your response for the obvious questions. Anticipate the more challenging or difficult questions that may arise during the discussion. A good reporter is likely to ask them if they have done their own research prior to the interview. Once you have identified those questions and know how you intend to respond, it will help you to stay calm during an interview.
- Stay on track using a “bridge.” Bridging is a technique that can help you to regain or retain control of an interview, and move away from an uncomfortable or controversial topic. Bridging is the use of phrases that when used appropriately, can steer a reporter back on track during an interview. A few examples: “Before we get off that topic, I’d like to add…” or “What’s most important here is…”
- Don’t evade a question. If you are unable to answer a question or choose not to, tell the reporter why. If the information is proprietary or confidential, state that you are not able to provide those due to a company policy or for legal reasons. Also, never speculate or guess at answers – state only the facts you do know. Nothing is off the record and any statement you make may end up in the final story. And at all times, avoid saying “no comment” as it implies you have something to hide and will only make a reporter even more curious.
- Don’t Become Defensive. If you become agitated or defensive during an interview, it can send a message that you may be hiding something or are in the wrong, but not willing to admit it. Instead, be relaxed and friendly, and if the reporter continues to push on a question to get a response, you can ask politely to move on to the next question. In the article on Ragan.com, Phillips suggested Revis “could have laughed off the charges or said: ‘Mike, we’ve covered that ground and disagree. What else do you want to talk about?’” Had Revis tried this early on in the interview, he may have had the opportunity to regain control of the interview to have an entirely different outcome.
The bottom line is that no matter the opportunity, it is important to be well prepared regardless if you are meeting a journalist in person or conducting an interview over the phone for a story that is to appear in print or broadcasted through radio or television. Through preparation and practice and knowing your key messages, you have the ability to take control of the interview to ensure success.
Molly McWhinnie
With today’s expansive digital media landscape, information is published and consumed faster than ever before. In order to capture the attention and mindshare of your key target audiences, it has become even more important to utilize rich, multimedia assets to accompany your traditional press materials. And while the infographic has become increasingly popular to convey a company’s message in a visually compelling manner, the use of video continues to be a very effective way to differentiate your offering, educate your customers and influence your influencers.
Gone are the days where video production was considered costly and confined to production inside an elaborate studio. Modern technology has made the creation and dissemination of video even easier, and has transformed how companies communicate today.
I recently came across an article on Ragan’s PR Daily that reminded me just how prevalent the use of video is in media today, and suggested some ways it can be leveraged to reach the masses. One suggestion was in the creation of video blogs, which we have previously discussed on our own blog. However, there are a number of ways in which communication professionals can make use of this powerful medium.
Consider the following:
- Company Overview. To create a more engaging experience for customers who visit your “about us” webpage, consider creating a short video to highlight the company’s mission and values, its history and key milestones, and a virtual tour of the office(s). The video may not only help prospective customers to select your services over a competitor, but it may also help with recruitment of potential employees as well.
- Feature Your Company Executives. One of our clients, Tecplot, recently created a video capturing interviews with several of its senior executives about the creation of Tecplot Chorus, a new simulation analytics tool that allows CFD engineers to easily discover trends and anomalies. Interviewing senior level executives about the company, its products and services, or industry trends, is a great way to establish and build upon your company’s thought leadership.
- Customer Testimonials. Nothing is more persuasive than having a customer testimonial captured on video to convey how your products and services have helped them achieve their business goals. An asset like this will help to drive sales among your current and prospective clientele.
- Product Demonstrations. Creating a video demo showcasing a product’s key features not only demonstrates how the product works, but can also differentiate the product from your competitors. Our client Tecplot, also created several product demos and video tutorials for the launch of Tecplot Chorus, to illustrate how it is the new generation of post-processing tools for engineers. In our media efforts to support the product’s launch, several media outlets found these videos valuable when illustrating their coverage on the product.
There is no denying that the use of video can be very effective in communicating your company’s message. Regardless of what you create, make sure your videos are short but as interesting as possible. And as the article on Ragan suggests, it is important to have a well-planned strategy in place to ensure you are delivering the right message to your key audiences.
How do you use video in your company’s communications strategy? What have you found to be the most effective?
For non-retailers, business slows down during the holidays as offices close and people take vacations. For the media, however, news never stops. Reporters are on a never-ending hunt for news even during the holidays.
To strengthen your media relationships and garner some media attention for your company or clients during the holidays, we suggest these tips.
1. Know reporters’ schedules and pitch before the holiday. A reporter you work closely with day-in and day-out may have a revised schedule for the holidays. Some newspapers have a skeleton crew, so reporters are reassigned from their regular beats to cover only breaking news. Just because they have to work on the holiday doesn’t mean they should have to work overtime to come up with story ideas during slow news cycles. Pitch story ideas for the holidays several weeks out. This allows them enough time to get the story in the bag before the holiday.
(Knowing what your reporters are facing in terms of holiday schedules comes from having strong relationships with them. For some tips on building relationships with reporters, read our “Back to the Basics: Building Relationships with Media” blog post.)
2. Provide all the elements of the story. Make it easy on a reporter and provide all the elements needed to develop the story. Showcase the news, provide background information, have names and contact information immediately available for people they can interview, and have photo or video opportunities clearly outlined (or already captured and ready to deliver). Read our previous blog post for specific tips on “How to Pitch a Reporter.”
3. Ensure people are available to talk. Nothing is more frustrating for a reporter than getting a story lead only to have phone calls go unanswered. Confirm specific times with interview subjects when they will be available to reporters. Provide your cell phone number to the reporter, and be available to assist with the story throughout the holidays as needed.
I once worked with an expert on forest fires. That particular year, July 4 was blazing hot and fire danger was at its worst. The expert’s tips on preparing for and preventing fires were sure to attract a lot of media attention. Tip sheet in hand, I was ready to pitch the story. However, when I called to confirm her availability, the expert let me know she’d be out of the country from the next afternoon until the middle of August. Throughout the process – even knowing we were going to pitch for the July 4 holiday – she’d never mentioned that she’d be gone, and it could have been frustrating for media to have received a pitch and not have the expert available. If you don’t specifically ask about people’s availability, you are setting yourself up for failure.
4. Check out the story – the day the story runs. Don’t wait until you’re back from your own holiday break to look up the story and ensure the information is accurate. With slow news cycles over the holidays, a story tends to get a lot more play. If a story is inaccurate, nip it in the bud immediately.
5. Be thankful. I know several former reporters who are grateful for their jobs outside of news because they finally get to have the holidays off. You may think you were doing a reporter a favor by providing a story idea during the holiday season, but don’t let it go to your head. It’s a stressful time for reporters, made even more so by the fact that they’re missing special festivities with friends and loved ones. Take time to thank the reporter for working on the holiday and for doing a great job with the story. It will go a long way in helping you maintain a strong relationship with the reporter.
By adopting these tips you’ll help your client garner coverage and cultivate a new friend in the media who will be grateful for your special attention. Spend that extra time nurturing media relationships during the holidays, and reap positive returns.
What are some other tips you have for engaging with reporters during the holidays?
Joni Kirk
Recently I revisited Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great.” The book focuses on why some companies are able to attain extraordinary results while others are not. Collins and his team of researchers identified “good-to-great” companies (i.e. companies that leap from good results to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years), as well as directly comparative companies (i.e. companies in the same industry with same opportunities and resources that did not have a leap from good to great) and unsustained comparative companies (i.e. companies that made a short-term shift to great, but did not maintain that path) in an effort to identify which factors contributed to those great companies’ sustained success.
As a leader of a growing firm, my attention is pulled many different directions given the needs of my team, our clients and the function of running a growing business. As I re-read “Good to Great,” I am reminded about the transformation process Collins identified, which is broken into three stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action or, more succinctly, a culture of discipline.
Collins writes, “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls.”
It is with this lens that I have been evaluating our organization and how we manage our existing and continued growth; determining where Communiqué PR is within the framework described in Collins’ book; and how we continue to move our organization forward in a manner that facilitates and encourages great performance.
Some of the findings shared in “Good to Great” include:
- “The good-to-great leaders spent essentially no energy trying to ‘create alignment,’ ‘motivate the troops,’ or ‘manage change.’”
- “Good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people the freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system.”
- “Good-to-great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding; comparison companies set their goals and strategies based on bravado.”
- Good-to-great companies maintained focus on their core concept that guided all their efforts. “If it doesn’t fit, we don’t do it. Period.”
As we near the end of 2011 and plan for 2012, it is valuable to take note of how as an organization we are creating a culture of discipline. I am already looking to build my “stop doing” list, determining what activities should be eliminated because they do not support our core concept.
“Good to Great” also provides a table to help evaluate if you’re on the path to a good-to-great company or if you’re in “the doom loop” as a comparative company.
How are you ensuring your organization is great?
There are some topics that are easy to write about, the words flow naturally, provide depth and result in compelling content. And then there are other topics that present more of a challenge and the interesting aspects are harder to extract.
So just how do you extract those gems that will make the difference between a stellar press release, memo, email or blog post and a snoozer? I came across an article on Ragan’s written by Alan Pearcy that provided some helpful guidance, “How to write riveting copy about any topic—even a job ad.” He provides tips that can spice up even the most mundane topics.
Consider the following:
- Dig deeper. Topics that appear dry might require a little more leg work, but if you dig around, you will be able to uncover a hook that will draw in readers. Alan uses an example from his “Job of the Day” feature where he wrote a job ad for “Cooking with Paula Deen.” This typically does not sound that exciting, but Alan hooked readers by writing the job description as a recipe, tapping into Paula’s roots. When I was working as a reporter, I put together a story about rising heroin use. To tell a more compelling story, I did some digging and connected with a recovered heroin user to help illustrate the dangers.
- Be funny. This is a tip that can be done well in the right dose. Make sure not to go overboard. Humor is a good tool to capture and entertain an audience, but it can also be a turn off and lose credibility if you overdo it or use it inappropriately. I will never forget when I graduated college and researched jobs in journalism. I came across a job ad written by a news director that was witty, honest and different, and I immediately applied. It drew me in and made me want to work for that company. The job was in a part of the country I would never have considered applying, but because of the way it was written, I was sold. Words have the power to sway decisions.
- Read more. Have you heard the saying, “the more you read, the more you’ll know?” By reading articles or books on unrelated topics you’ll be able to draw connections that you might not have made. For example, if you are writing a pitch where you are trying to illustrate something, analogies or famous quotes can be helpful. A pitch about a charitable partnership could open with this analogy, “Life is like a coin. You can spend it anyway you wish, but you can only spend it once.”
- Open a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a great tool for expanding your vocabulary. It helps you avoid using repetitive words and makes for a more creative read. However, use it in moderation and don’t use words or phrases that no one will understand as this can dissuade your audience from continuing to read.
- Use a provocative subject line. When sending an email pitch or memo, the key to getting your email read is the subject line. For more information on this tip read our previous post on “Subject Lines That Are Sexy.”
It’s likely there are still topics that might require additional steps to craft “riveting” copy. We aren’t suggesting that you spend hours researching humorous tidbits or famous quotes for every company email, but if you want your writing to be read and received well, adding a little creativity can be helpful.
The New York Times Makes a Bold Move to Increase Reader Engagement
Last week, The New York Times announced that the publication was making a change to its reader comment policy. Perhaps the most significant change is that the new policy will give readers the ability to become a “trusted commenter,” by allowing them to bypass the moderating process and post comments on the website at will. According to The New York Times, the changes are designed to improve the community experience across nytimes.com.
In addition to providing some readers with a fast-track status that will exempt their comments from moderation, the new policy will keep all comments on the same page, give readers the ability to reply directly to other readers’ comments, and provide the option to share comments via Twitter and Facebook. The “trusted commentator” status is available by invitation only and will be offered to those who have an established record of regularly contributing valuable comments.
These changes are significant for an established media brand and a bold step in the growing trend of surrendering more control for an increased and more authentic form of engagement. However, The New York Times is receiving mixed reviews for its new policy and facing backlash from its commenting community. While most can agree that enabling and enhancing the comment function on online news sites is a step in the right direction to help foster valuable conversations, others are criticizing the changes. Many commenters are angry about the changes with some even claiming the invitation-only “trusted commenter” status is anti-democratic because it doesn’t give everyone a fair right to express their opinions.
Regardless of whether you’re for or against the new policy, or perhaps your reactions are somewhere in between, these changes signal broad recognition within the news community that audience participation and engagement play a critical role in enhancing reporting and coverage. Enabling comments is one of the most effective methods of building global, online communities and something that Communiqué PR practices in its blog.
What’s your take on the issue? Is The New York Times taking an innovative step toward maintaining control of its brand while amplifying the voices of its readers? Or does the new policy prohibit equal conversations and unfairly grant privileges to some and not others? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Monica Rodriguez