Category: Media training

Your own content is a vital part of the media mix, Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at why you might want to take part in the media and get coverage. There have been, we hope, some compelling thoughts. There will be people, however, who will wonder why they have to bother. Their own blogs, LinkedIn posts, Tik Toks, Instagram and reels allow them to contact clients and prospects really easily.

There is an element of truth to this. There are risks, however. Your own media is going to offer your side of the story and nothing else so everyone is going to expect it to be promotional. The trick, we believe, is to offer value without pretending it’s otherwise (we like to think these blogs are a good example: yes of course we want you to buy media training from us as a percentage of you do, so by all means these posts are promotional but we aim to add genuine insight to encourage you to keep reading!)

The aim of this entry, then, is to consider what you might want to put out into the market in terms of your own media. We will make a few assumptions:

• You know what you need to get out of your media and what you want your audience to do next
• You’ve done some basic research on your prospects so, for example, you won’t be aiming to do a Tik Tok if you’re aiming at senior people or a LinkedIn entry for the consumer market.

Those basics should be obvious but they don’t seem to be to everyone!

Own content: what are you good at?

There are many articles and resources online which suggest your social media is not about you, it’s about the client. Well, yes, up to a point and that’s why we kicked off with a couple of questions about your customer. There’s another factor, though.

Actually, the subheading up there is a big clue. You need to ask yourself what you’re actually good at.

For the moment, as we type, Google‘s algorithm (according to our excellent webmasters at Rare Form New Media) favours longer-form blogs that emerge regularly and contain original content. Longer-term followers might have noticed that prior to the website’s complete overhaul, you’d get a quick 300-400 word tip and then we’d end the article; 1250+ is apparently what’s going to be picked up and highlighted on Google now so we’re behaving accordingly.

The thing is, lead trainer and founder Guy writes all of the content at the moment (yes folks, it’s me). And as you might expect from someone who’s been a professional journalist for over 30 years, he’s pretty words-oriented. There he is, posing like a whatsit in front of some books he has no intention of buying.

So this plays very well into exactly what Google seems to want from websites at the moment, lots of fresh content with links outside and inside with an unobtrusive focus on the SEO phrase (in today’s instance you’ll notice “own content” crops up a few times).

Alternatives

Business advisors we’ve had have also suggested we look at other social media. Again, LinkedIn tends to be pretty good for us because it’s wordy. Instagram, however, is fine for “reels” – the short-form films that lend themselves to tips, we just re-use the ones we send to YouTube – but people scanning it for still photos will be out of luck as Guy has the visual sense of a particularly slow hamster. With a blindfold.

This may not be great for business and it drives the advisors up the wall but we do urge you, if you want to generate your own content, to stick to something you’re going to do well. Here is our basic impression of the social media and owned media out there at the moment and how to tell whether they’re right for you.

Your own blog

Obviously, a blog is in your playground, you’re paying for the space so you won’t face sudden controversies as a new owner takes over or the politics take over. You’re not restricted by word length so take advice from web experts – assume the lengths we’ve described above will be out of date if you’re reading this when it’s a year old or more. However, it’s worth considering people’s attention span. You might notice we’ve broken up every long entry not only with pictures but with subheadings. This helps people concentrate and it also helps structure the article; the main heading has subheadings and these in turn have H3 headings underneath them. Google will look out for well-structured content that isn’t duplicated from elsewhere and if Google’s algorithms like it, it’ll perform better when people are searching.

Facebook

A lot of services have their own company pages on Facebook. This can be a great idea for consumer-facing businesses. In our experience the business community isn’t as excited by a Facebook group so if you’re a business to business supplier then it’s worth looking at LinkedIn. Try to remember people go to Facebook to relax and unwind a little so it’s worth keeping it chatty.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is intended as a business network. Microsoft owns it; the original founders had the idea that you shouldn’t connect with people you didn’t know personally so you could recommend anyone in your network. Somewhere along the line, members jettisoned this idea en masse so connecting with anyone is pretty commonplace.

This has the advantage for business owners in that its audience arrives expecting business content. It also has a newsletter function with which you can reach people who follow you very quickly and in large numbers.

As you’d expect from such a widespread service, however, just about everybody is aware of those services so you’ll find competition for attention is fierce. You can get attention by adding constructive comments and debated to other people’s entries. Be careful though; this is a slow burn, results are not swift. This in turn means it can be quite a drain on your time.

YouTube

If your following would benefit from how-to videos or other forms of video content then YouTube is a useful resource. Remember everyone can upload videos so it will pay you to take a little more care than most; brush up your editing skills and buy a better webcam and microphone than the ones that came with your laptop. Very few people will look at a video and judge it as good or bad because of the video quality consciously. Many will walk away with a bad impression and not be sure why when the image is off centre, when the sound is muffled.

It’s arguable that YouTube is more the consumer brand and for business to business services you will look more professional with a paid account from competitor Vimeo. Depending on your market you may find a certain polite bewilderment if you even mention them; without any suggestion of this being a good or a bad thing, Google owns YouTube and therefore has a lot of marketing and branding muscle to throw at it.

Instagram

Insta (as the kids call it) has moved beyond the still-images-only network of years ago. You can now upload short videos (or “reels”) and therefore talk to as well as show things to your target market. Don’t forget to engage afterwards; you really don’t want this to end up looking as if you’re just shouting into the void.

Tik Tok

For a long time we wrote Tik Tok off not because it wasn’t going to succeed but because it was primarily a young person’s thing and in the consumer market – so if you’re in those markets it’s going to be good for you. Inevitably the young people from ten years ago are in their twenties and sometimes even thirties and are still watching Til Tok videos; from our point of view we’ve started duplicating our “tip” videos from Instagram and YouTube into Tik Tok just so we have a presence; it looks likely that people will still go to Tik Tok for something more entertaining.

Podcasts

You can of course make your own video series or create your own podcast. This isn’t difficult and in our next blog entry we’ll have a look at how lead trainer Guy puts his Near Futurist podcast together and gets it out there.

Overall it can be worth publishing your own media because it’s inexpensive and you get to tell your own story rather than allow an intermediary like a journalist to handle it. Before you decide to ignore the independent channels, however, remember they offer a sanity check and some legitimisation. You say your business is great to work for, that’s fine. Nobody is cynical enough to suggest you don’t believe it but they will recognise that you have a vested interest. If an independent journalist says you’re a great employer, however, people are more likely to listen.

Managing expectations is a bad phrase. It is often perceived as meaning “this is going to be a bit rubbish” – go on, when someone says they want to manage expectations a bit, that’s what you think they’re going to say.

In PR and media terms managing expectations is important. So often we’ve had initial meetings with clients who believe that once their interview skills are up to scratch, sales will go through the roof. Look at Steve Jobs. He was an incredible presenter and speaker and when he spoke people bought his iPhones. Well, yes they did. He also had an absolute fortune of marketing spend behind him.

There are more serious objections to working with the media, though, and this article is about one of them.

Will the journalist will just do what they want?

When we were preparing Clapperton Media for the redesign and rebrand (if you like the website then we got it right, if you don’t, not so much) we spoke to a few advisors. One of them asked us what our main mission in life was and we said – as it says on the homepage – that our clients were concerned that a journalist would take their points (or their clients’ points as many of our partners work in PR).

Our job, we said (and will continue to say), was to ensure our clients had the tools in place to manage an interview. The response was “I don’t accept the premise, I know journalists, they’ll just go away and write what they want”.

We didn’t end up working with him, as you can imagine. He had the same expectation as a lot of people, however; go into an interview with a journalist and they will take over and set the entire agenda themselves.

Some might, and it’s in avoiding those that the PR community can demonstrate a lot of value. The wiser ones, however, will allow you to set a lot of your own agenda. Here’s why.

Managing the journalist’s expectations

What so few people tell you is that journalists themselves have expectations for an interview. Here’s a blog entry from journalist website Muckrack that takes you through the sort of preparation they’ll do.

What they expect from you is very straightforward: expertise. If you’re dealing with a journalist and you want to publicise your business, they won’t want to act as your PR department but they’ll want to write about your area with some authority. And here’s where we get to the related point about journalists: they will have done the research and may even specialise in writing and commentating about your area, but they’re unlikely to have taken part. Your knowledge is going to be better than theirs.

This means that we need you to take over the agenda from time to time. Here’s a link to a YouTube video we use for media training sometimes:

It’s Dido Harding, then chief executive of TalkTalk, on a cyber-attack that happened eight years ago. The point we want to highlight is exactly three minutes in. Kirsty Wark is trying to interrupt but Harding persists in talking over her and introduces the notion that the company is offering its customers free credit monitoring so they can see whether they are at risk.

The interview improves

Wark may have been frustrated about this (we don’t know her, can’t ask) but Harding didn’t work for her, she worked for TalkTalk and wanted to be accountable to its customers. She is right to take control here. It’s also noticeable that she adds value. Wark couldn’t have known about the plan to help with credit monitoring, it is entirely up to Harding to introduce it at this stage.

She does so by taking control. She establishes her expertise. The viewer will trust her a great deal more than someone just answering yes and no and allowing the journalist to dictate the agenda completely.

So what should you expect?

The journalist expects you to share expertise and they won’t expect a sales pitch – if they get one it will stay in their notebook and not get shared or it will end up on the cutting room floor.

So if you can’t go in heavy with the sales pitch, what can you do and what should you expect to get out of it? Here are a few ideas.

Address some issues

You know your market better than the journalist. They might follow it carefully but their information is second hand. Pick some issues that are important to your business. The chances are very good that they will be important to others too, specifically the journalist’s readers. Qualify those issues by saying why they are important. Use phrases like “our customers are telling us” and “what the market is doing is…” and you will start to gain traction.

Limit what you address

One of the most frequent complaints we come across is clients thinking journalists are at fault because they fail to grasp the complexity of an organisation. They don’t get the nuances.

Let’s turn that around for a second. A journalist visits you or your organisation, or arranges a call. You spend, what, 45 minutes once the polite noises are out of the way? And you are expecting someone to master all of the nuances of a complex organisation in which you’ve been full time for several years within the space of that three quarters of an hour.

It’s not going to happen. The way to ensure you don’t get misquoted or misunderstood is to limit the topics you speak about. Expecting a journalist to grasp everything too quickly is a non-starter so the thing to do is to offer them a great deal less. Tailor what you say to that journalist’s audience.

Be careful with exclusives

One thing you’ll need to watch as interest in your business grows is the idea of an exclusive. Giving a journalist something no other outlet has is going to go down very well – with that publication. The tricky thing is navigating your way around other journalists when you’re perceived to have done someone a favour. For our money the easiest thing to do is to treat them all equally; by all means you’ll have some you’d rather deal with than others because you’re human but we’d recommend trying not to play one off against another. It rarely ends up serving any useful purpose (and if you’ve been giving exclusives to one particular trade journalist because they worked on your favourite publication, what do you do when they move job and work for the competition?)

Final expectations

You can and should expect to be treated fairly. Journalists will always get a balancing comment if someone is criticising you (if said journalist knows what they’re doing). You should expect accuracy – they might not highlight the bits of your messages you wanted them to, which is another good reason for limiting what you tell them, but they will correct it if they get something factually wrong.

As we’ve said before, in terms of what the reader or listener is going to do next, it can be a good idea to start at this point and work out your communications strategy from there by moving backwards. Getting back to the point with which we kicked off this entry, it would be very unusual, unless you have Apple’s marketing dollars, to get a load of sales out of a piece of press coverage. It tends to be a slower burn than that. But if you play the game, deliver relevance and engage with what’s important to the reader, it’s a slow burn you should be able to ignite.

Preparation is vital if you want to achieve anything and that includes interview preparation. One of our trainers who wll remain nameless because he doesn’t want everyone to know how unfit he is has decided to do the “Couch to 5K” course in 2023. He has downloaded the app but is aware that he can’t just go in and do it in his late(ish) 50s. He will need to work his way up to it and warm up his alleged muscles.

In a possibly related incident, lead trainer Guy had a client a few years back who was doing a “fireside chat” style panel discussion online. She wanted to build her confidence and felt she needed preparation. They went through the likely questions a few times but one thing Clapperton Media did was to send a video of us asking questions and leaving a space for the client to answer. The idea – and we admit it was crude – was that the client should run through the panel experience before actually taking part and come into it “warmed”.

Preparation in other fields

It’s quite baffling to us that some people feel they shouldn’t have to prepare or warm up before taking part in an interview or sometimes a presentation. Consider what people do in other fields. We’ll start with areas that are a long way away from the field in which we work and move closer, which we admit is probably a cheap psychological trick.

Warming up for tennis

Here is a picture of some people playing tennis except as you can see they are nowhere near ready to pick up the ball. They are stretching, they are limbering up and warming their muscles. This might sound a little obvious and even patronising which is not our intention. They will have started preparing a long time before if they expect to be any good (not that we have anything against beginners). As we write, Roger Federer is a few months away from having announced his retirement but we’re guessing he’d still be pretty handy on the court; even if you’re twentysomething and athletic but haven’t picked up a tennis racket in your life he’s still going to slaughter you in a game.

Warming up for an audition

Slightly closer to home for people wanting to work using words is the preparation you might use if you’re going to perform in front of an audience. Here’s a link to the Royal College of Music’s guidance on what to expect in an audition to get onto one of its prestigious courses. The bit you’re looking for (or the bit we’re interested in if you’re not motivated to read through it) is the part that specifies you should allow 15-20 minutes for warming yourself up before you start the audition.

In other words they expect you to come in match-fit. Now ask yourself, if you do any public speaking as part of your job, any keynotes or Town Hall meetings for your employees or clients, do you warm up your voice first – or just expect it to work? Some of the skills you need to “project” as people call it are related to the music the Royal Academy advises, although if you check the excellent Lee Warren’s book on presenting he makes the valid point that sound resonates rather than projects – consciously try to project and you’ll push too hard and end up shouting.

It’s worth considering what you do about warming up your voice and speaking clearly before a major presentation. Most people overlook this but at least have a think about the subject beforehand.

Preparation before a speech

We had a client just before Christmas who we’d describe as a “minority”. Not because of any gender or race distinction but because when we asked what preparation he’d normally do before a speech (we weren’t training him in making speeches but we’ll come to why we asked in a second) he said “nothing, I just turn up”.

His view was that he had decades of experience in his field so just arriving and talking would be fine. He had testimonials to suggest that in his case it was indeed effective; for the vast majority we’d suggest it’s a somewhat haphazard approach – our trainers have been working in their fields for decades but wouldn’t dream of arriving without a briefing and some notes on what they’re going to do, probably including a formal presentation.

The vast majority of our clients agree. If you’re going to go and speak to 200-300 people you’d better do some sort of research, prepare and rehearse several times so that you’re familiar with the material and what comes next. You want that audience to identify with what you’re saying and to act on it.

Many of our clients say this is common sense. Preparation is vital for a speech, of course it is. We then turn this around when we’re training people to talk to the press and ask them what they do in terms of interview preparation. Many clients say, as the client who appeared at the beginning of this section did, that they just turn up. The journalist or other media professional just wants them to answer questions, which they can do without preparation.

Preparation before an interview

The flaw with that logic is that the people going in front of an audience of 200-300 wanted to prepare. The people going in front of an audience of thousands through the medium of a press interview thought they needed to do less. Do the maths – it doesn’t add up! Also if you’re just going to give the journalist they want then fine, they’ll love it. But in what other setting would you enter a business conversation and just hand everything over with no regard to your own needs?

If you’re going into an interview then the need for preparation is massive. You might want to engage the help of a PR company (you might already have done so which could be how you’ve secured the opportunity). Some of the things you will need to know will include:

• Your topic and what’s going to be of most interest. Yes of course you’re the expert in your area and your company but you’re not going to be able to communicate all the information and every detail in the space of a 45 minute interview. So you have to cherrypick.
• This means you’ll need an understanding of the journalist and the publication. If you work in, say, the fashion industry, you’ll have targeted a publication that’s interested in clothes but you’ll have a different set of messages for the trade as compared to the consumer, also you might be talking to someone who specialises in writing about fashion on a budget, fashion for people who don’t use animal products…there are many variants and only by knowing who you’re talking to and thinking through the right messages in advance can you do your business justice.

Ready for what?

Your interview preparation will need to leave you ready not only for presenting the facts but also for facing the followup questions. We could consider Guy’s client with the panel discussion again.  We sent a recording of some questions which she was able to use as a warm-up and she had of course prepared before going in front of the audience. She had an audience of about 100 online; if you’re interviewed, even by a trade audience, you could probably add a couple of noughts to that figure.

Now, how were you going to prepare, again?

If you or your clients need help with interview preparation we’re here to put you through your paces – just fill in the contact form and we’ll set up an initial chat.

Finding journalists sounds easy. Earlier in this series of blog entries, we looked at how big it was as a profession and realised that there were over 100,000 of them in the UK alone. Unfortunately, we also took some time to look at how ludicrous some of the pitches they receive can be.

The trick, as we established in that linked blog entry, is how to ensure you find the right journalist. First,we’d urge you not to go too scattergun. There are plenty of online services offering help finding journalists because they have a list of thousands or whatever. They will take your press release or another piece of collateral, stick it into a mass mailer and send it to literally thousands of people.

Here’s the big secret. Most of those people will indeed be journalists or some sort of media outlet. They will be able to publicise you if your release catches their attention. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to do so. The big problem is that professionals can spot these mass market things from quite a distance. They’re generally distinguished by having an “unsubscribe” button to be GDPR compliant and this tells journalists that everybody has the same story already. That makes it a great deal less appealing.

This is why we always recommend a targeted approach. Less is more, and other clichés and yes of course we know that should be “fewer” is more.

So how do you find these people and what do you approach them with?

Journalists are chatty

Ideally, a journalist should be a good listener. They should ask a question that leads to a discussion and glean insights from the speaker.

Phooey. Anyone who has met our lead trainer Guy will be well aware that a number of them can’t wait to tell you all about themselves. Fortunately, you can use this to your advantage. Follow them on Twitter and better still, check their profiles on Linkedin. This is where they will have set out their stalls professionally and the switched-on ones will make their interests and the publications for which they write more than clear.

 

Also join the groups they’re likely to look at. This doesn’t mean searching for journalism groups, which are frequently packed out with people looking for the numbers for various press offices (people think journalists have researchers to find these things out for them, do they heck) and links to articles they’ve just published.

Interest groups

We recommend instead that you join groups into which you can add something useful. If you’re in manufacturing, look for manufacturing groups. If you’re in IT, join an IT group Nine times out of ten the best journalists will have joined already. Start answering questions and helping people, put the odd post up yourself; eventually it’s likely that journalists will start to approach you as a contact.

Look also at other social media. At the time of writing, Twitter has recently been acquired by Elon Musk and a lot of people are predicting its imminent demise. Our rule is that if something has been imminent for more than a month there’s a good chance it’s not going away even if its character is likely to change. Facebook can also be useful and the jury is out on Mastodon.

We’ve deliberately stuck with the more text-based networks. Many people are heavily engaged on Instagram but it’s a little trickier to engage when someone’s communication is primarily through images. Essentially, assess where your ideal journalist is likely to hang out and address that network.

Caveat: finding journalists doesn’t mean threatening them

There’s a theory among some press spokespeople and business owners that the best way to attract a journalist’s attention is to inform them you’re an advertiser and will withdraw your spending if they don’t write about you. To which we’d say no, no and for the third time, no.

Of course, there are some smaller blogs and publications that only cover the people who advertise them and if that’s a financial model that works, fine. Equally, there are opportunities for companies with deeper pockets to sponsor publications and supplements, maybe even in the national press. The readers tend to spot this after a while, though. They carry less weight than pure, earned press coverage and you’re better off in the sections people will take seriously.

It’s also true that some journalists will thoroughly enjoy winding the advertising team up by ignoring any entreaties from would-be advertisers carrying money. Commentators are mostly proud of their independence; threaten it or try to suggest it’s compromised and they are likely to walk away.

Finding journalists – which ones?

Some readers might be feeling as if they’ve been given a satnav and no direction. Here is where you find journalists. What journalists? How do you know who they are?

This is where you have to do some homework. There is no point in wanting press coverage if you’re not going to check the press out. Members of the press will be alert to people who haven’t read, watched or listened to the media they are approaching. Here are a coupleof things that have happened during lead trainer Guy‘s career:

• Working on a Guardian supplement for small and micro businesses. Guy sent a note out to get help and information on technology for small traders. One PR person sent him a pitch for a financial institution’s share trading platform. Guy said he meant small traders as in small businesses that traded things. The spokesperson wrote back and said, “These are small traders, unless you’re looking for something for Fred and his market stall!” Micro businesses like market stalls were exactly the sort of target he had in mind.
• In the same supplement, people would approach Guy with suggestions for the people page. “We are a small business and have a new director, it’s newsworthy”, they said. In nine years of publishing the small business supplement, there never was a “people page”. The people pitching clearly hadn’t looked – or had persuaded themselves there was such a page.

Your first job, if you want to target a publication, is to look at the publication itself. Check the masthead, the credits section where you’ll find the editor, the features editor, the news editor, all those people. Find them on LinkedIn.

Finding journalists then sending something

Let’s say you now know who you need to approach. You want to send them something, information, for example. You’ve located them, their email is on the masthead. So what do you do next?

There are different approaches and you need to keep an eye on what works. You also need to consider what feels comfortable to you personally. The easiest thing, you’d think, is to send a quick email. My company is doing X, we think it’s important because Y, would you like a chat? That can work sometimes.

The more traditional approach is the press release, which consists of:

1. Snappy and meaningful (not “clever”) headline
2. Subtitle expanding on why the headline is important
3. Intro paragraph with who, what, when, where, why
4. More detail in following short paragraphs but make sure the journalist gets the gist if they only glance through the first paragraph
5. Contact details, who to ask for pictures and further quotes

The error some people make is to follow up with a call either too quickly or too late. Journalists are unlikely to welcome followup calls even when they’re well-timed but we have seen:

• People leaving it two weeks before calling and following up – possibly because a client is breathing down their neck.
• People hitting “send” and then calling within two minutes. Genuinely, this has happened to us.

Calling with something to say

It can be frustrating when you send your release out and nobody appears interested. Some journalists will offer feedback on what they felt went wrong. Very few of them are pleased with a call that just says “I wanted to check you got my press release” although a few people still put those calls in.

If you’re convinced your announcement was newsworthy then it can be worth a followup call but first, be prepared for a rebuff; second, try to avoid asking whether the release arrived. “Yes” and a hangup is a possibility. “Did it bounce back?” tells you that they think you know whether the release got through and they’re not going to engage. There is a way to avoid these outcomes.

Suppose you send a release out about this inexpensive new smartphone you’ve made because you are convinced people are spending too much money. Your call might go: hello, that press release I sent about the Cheapophone, we’ve now struck a deal with X mobile phone network to sell it.” Or “We now have a customer who’s adopted them for her business and she’s willing to talk.” Or “We’ve just heard a major technology analyst has rated us in the top quadrant” or something.

It could be anything but try never to be as bland as “did you get my press release?” It’s too easy to terminate the call.