What Your Media Training Company Should Be Teaching You
The importance of media training cannot be stressed enough. Essentially it amounts to helping people to develop the skills needed to communicate effectively with the media whether on TV, radio, print, or even social media. This ensures that interviews result in the story you want to run. A successful media training company should aim to give trainees a sense of confidence when speaking to the media. To achieve this it should ensure that the training covers three critical aspects, namely:
Understanding the media
Trainees must be taught how the media thinks when approaching the interview. In addition trainees should be familiar with the media’s roles and tactics. Reporters have one main job to do – to get the story. They often start out with obvious, straightforward questions geared at understanding the type of business and its products and services. But if the interviewee gives the reporter information that they think will sensationalize the article, they’ll take it. Moreover it is important for the trainees to recognize that it is not the reporter’s job to understand the interviewee’s business. Instead it is the interviewee’s responsibility to make sure that the responses he provides gives the reporter, and the audience, that insight. If the reporter finds that the interview does not provide enough substance so as to engage the readers or audience, the story will not run. Therefore it is crucial for the interviewee to provide compelling and well thought-out answers.
Realistic Practice Exercises
The best way to teach interview skills is to make use of mock interviews. These interviews should be as realistic as possible and be focused on questions that the trainees will most likely face in real-life interactions with the media. Media training should provide the trainee with a process for interview preparation. This typically includes the crafting of key points that the interviewee wants to get across to the media during the interview. It is also important to have a closing statement at hand that will summarize your key points, provide a meaningful exit and resonate with your target market.
Feedback
Media training helps the trainee with delivery and control techniques so as to best enhance their personal presence. And the most useful way for a trainee to gain feedback is for him or her to watch recordings of the practice interviews. In this way trainees can take note of their responses, body language and overall presentation and work on those aspects that need improving.
Communications with the media can either make or break your business. In the age of social media, one bad interview can be shared to a worldwide audience. Media training is therefore a worthy investment. Your business stands to gain so much from successful media interactions. So rather than blaming a bad interview on bad questions or ulterior motives, rather turn to media training which will help you learn to control the direction in which the interview is heading. And finding a media training company to successfully implement the necessary skills is key.
