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• Relax and treat the host like a friend
• Dress in solid, darker colors
• Be an expert guest, not a salesperson

Making your first television appearance as a guest on a news or talk show can be one of the most thrilling, and nerve-wracking, events in your publicity campaign.

Let’s face it – we think TV, we think celebrity. It’s exciting. Ever spot the anchor from your local TV newscast dining in the same restaurant as you? Did you grab your companion’s arm, point, and say, sotto voce, “Look!”?  (Yes, I’m guilty, too.)

As much as TV can be a shot at junior stardom, it’s an equal opportunity to fall flat on your face – at least, that’s the fear many people have. That’s why I’d like to introduce you to Russ Handler, our TV Campaign Manager at EMSI.  Russ has some tips to offer from his years of experience as an on-air traffic anchor and producer for a major-market news station:

• Take some time well before the show to prepare what you’ll be talking about.  You’ve only got about 3 to 5 minutes, so you want to make the most out of that on-air time.

• The way you look is critical, because your appearance affects how the audience perceives you.

• Avoid wearing white clothes, which tend to wash out on camera, and tight-patterned fabrics, which can make the picture flutter.  Solid and darker colors are usually best, but simple patterns like stripes or polka-dots are okay if the pattern’s not too tight.

• Avoid shorter skirts, shorts or turtlenecks and loose jewelry around the neck or wrist.  The microphones are sensitive and may pick up clacking beads and bracelets. Remember that your footwear may be visible, so make sure your shoes are in good condition and reflect your professionalism.

• Ignore the cameras. Instead, have a friendly conversation with the hosts as if you’re sitting with them in your home.  The more relaxed you are, the more competent you will appear and the more the audience will warm to you.

• During the interview, if the host motions for you to look at a monitor, it’s because the video or graphics being displayed is what the audience is seeing on their screen.  You should comment on what the viewers are seeing and, if appropriate, use this opportunity to convey your message.

• Make sure to bring a copy of your book or a sample of your product to the station.  Before the segment, talk to the producer and ask whether you can display it during the interview.  It’s always a good idea to bring extra product samples or books as gifts for the host and producers.  If you’re an author, an autographed copy of your book is also a nice touch.
• Keep in mind that it is NOT the hosts’ responsibility to mention the title of your book or product or where viewers can buy it, so make sure to mention that at least once – but DON’T turn the segment into an infomercial. If you have a book that’s sold on Amazon.com as well as a personal website, mention Amazon; viewers are familiar with it and will be more likely to remember it.

Before you walk into the studio, remind yourself to be informative, animated and expressive. This is your moment to shine, so go for it.

I hope Russ’s tips help make you a star on your first – or next – TV appearance. Don’t be surprised if the next time you go out to eat, you see diners pointing at you and saying, “Look!”

• Why radio interviews have gone from one hour to today’s norm of 7 to 10 minutes.
• How radio stations are rated and what this means to you.

Last week I introduced you to our new Creative Director, Penny Carnathan, an award-winning former newspaper editor who shared tips for getting press coverage in this era of changing media. I got such great feedback, I thought I’d introduce you to some of the other members of our team who can share similar insights about the media.

I’ll start with Alex (“Dro”) Hinojosa, who spent 15 years as a talk radio host, as he’s got some excellent insights into this industry, for those looking to use radio to get their message out. As with newspapers, it’s a new age in the world of talk radio.

Alex and I actually go way back. He first came to EMSI in 2007 after working for CBS, Clear Channel and Genesis Communications. He’d worked as a host and also as an executive producer and program director in major markets including Washington, D.C., Detroit, and right here in Tampa Bay. He was with us for only a year before the radio bug bit again in the form of a great job offer from Atlanta.

You know I think of everyone at EMSI as family, so when he first told me of this opportunity, it nearly broke my heart that he wanted to leave us.  But, understanding the mindset of media personalities, I knew he wouldn’t be happy until he got it out of his system. So I encouraged him to go (and quietly sobbed into my coffee).

But I also knew we’d stay in touch and remain friends no matter where he went. I was right.  Alex returned to EMSI last September as our Senior Campaign Manager, now overseeing all of our clients’ campaigns.

I talked to Alex about how the changes affect talk shows and how it can affect you as a potential guest. Our interview ran a bit long so I’ll give you half of it today and come back with the rest tomorrow.

Marsha:  I know radio is going through trials comparable to what the newspaper industry has experienced, with mass layoffs. What do you feel is the impact on AM radio and the talk show format in general?

Alex:  There aren’t as many shows, Marsha, and the hosts that are left wear a lot of hats. Very rarely is a host just a host. He – or she – might also be a producer, which involves booking guests, updating the station Web site, interacting on social media and they might also be in charge of any number of other jobs, like promotions or production. Because they’re really, really busy, if you want to be a guest on their show, you’ve got to grab their attention quickly or you won’t even make a blip on their screen.  The way to do that is offer them an angle and a segment they immediately recognize as a perfect fit for their audience.

Marsha: I would imagine it’s overwhelming to some of the hosts who have to do all that and still focus on getting good ratings.

Alex:  Seems daunting, huh? Because prep time is cut short with those off-air responsibilities, hosts are really looking for topics and guests that will play to their target audience, be engaging and provide good content. They’re not there to sell someone’s book or product – their goal is to keep their audience listening so their ratings stay up.

If a guest helps them out by giving a great interview, well, they’ll likely return the favor by plugging the person’s book and even linking to it from their blog.

Marsha:  On the subject of ratings, we’ve seen big changes in how they’re determined. What do you think of the new PPM ratings system?

Alex: As you know, ratings used to be done through diaries, actually writing down what station or show you listened to over a period of time. Now though, most big markets use PPM – Personal People Meter – which tracks listening in real time with a device those being surveyed actually wear. Ironically, most everyone in radio, except the No. 1-rated station, will tell you those PPMs are inaccurate and that there is no real way to gauge exactly who and how many are listening. But hosts have to pay attention to them because it’s how they’re judged by management.

Marsha: So in the end, no one knows that audience better than the host. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

Alex:  Exactly! And no talk show host who is on the hook for ratings will book a guest who’s wrong for his show. Hosts know what their audiences want and they’re not going to invite someone whose topic has no interest for their listeners. If you’re booked, it’s only because that audience is a fit for you and your message.

Marsha:  When I first started this business 21+ years ago, the interviews we scheduled for our clients were an hour and sometimes longer.  Then we saw the interviews go to twenty to thirty minutes, and now they’re shorter than that.  What do you feel the reason is for this change in interview formats?

Alex: The new PPM system is tracking audiences minute to minute, counting the listeners tuning in and listeners tuning out. For radio stations, that means every minute counts. Now the average interview is seven to ten minutes in most cities and if you get more than that, it’s a blessing. But, we’re also seeing as little as three- to five-minute interview segments during morning drive time in the top major markets.  Think about it like this: the methodology for gathering radio ratings is a lot closer to how ratings for TV are tallied now.  How consistently do you see a 30-45 minute interview on TV?  Not often.  Expect the same with radio.  That doesn’t mean you can’t get your message out.  You just have to be more focused and to the point as a guest because hosts are being trained by their bosses to be concise too.  So, preparation and media training are a must!

Tomorrow: The difference between small audiences and big ones; radio and social networking; and a new life for “old” interviews.

And now, the season begins.

In the office, everyone is hanging around the coffee machine longer and enjoying holiday deserts.  Outside the office, people are caught up in the holiday parties, shopping, food, family gatherings, and enough reruns of holiday programs that they are replaying the Grinch song in their head. They spend a little more time online surfing eBay for gifts and writing emails to associates hoping to put any real work off until January 2.

That’s a major mistake for anyone engaged in or thinking of engaging in a media campaign. The holidays are exactly the time to pop the clutch and put your campaign into overdrive.

The reason is obvious. Although many assume that nothing of any consequence really happens over the holidays, what it really means is that fewer people are competing for those guest interviews on radio and TV and in print. This opens up an opportunity for you to jump in and compete for that media, with fewer of your competitors in that mix. Let’s face it, the media still needs people to interview to generate content.  So, if your competition is not in the game over the holidays, this is the perfect time for you to step in and get the coverage.

Because, even though many companies tend to run silent during the holidays, the media doesn’t. In fact, as we sit there on Christmas morning wondering what store is still open when you’ve run out of aspirin, the media is one industry that doesn’t ever shut down.

During the holidays, turn on the TV.  While CBS might be running reruns of Two and a Half Men, of course, the evening news isn’t running a repeat. And, what about CNN? They still report the day’s news just like any other day.

Same thing holds true for the print media – on Christmas morning and the day after Christmas, your newspaper is still delivered to your front door. And you can bet Yahoo! isn’t recycling content from November.  No, they’re aggregating news from all over the world that was written on Christmas day.

The media works every day of the year – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween, Yom Kippur, Purim, Kwanza and yes, even Arbor Day. They need fresh content every single day of the week. Their crews may change and shift, their lead people take vacations while second stringers fill in for them. But every day, they broadcast, print, publish and distribute the news. Every day. And their need for content, combined with your competitors’ need to relax, can result in excellent press coverage for you.

You can deck the halls and sing the songs and eat the food that will no doubt be the inspiration for at least one or two New Year’s resolutions. In the meantime, though, consider celebrating the holidays by making them productive. Get yourself in front of the media while your competitors are guzzling eggnog. After all, isn’t success the best holiday gift you could give yourself?

However, there is one industry that doesn’t close down. It’s the media and here are some statistics to back that up:

• Number of newspapers who publish on Thanksgiving Day – 100 percent
• Number of radio shows airing on Christmas Day – 100 percent
• Number of TV networks broadcasting on New Year’s Day – 100 percent

Okay, maybe I’m being just a little facetious, but I think you get my point. The media doesn’t shut down during the holidays.  The newspaper still arrives at your door every morning and when you turn on the radio or TV, you’ll find all the same shows are on the air.  Admittedly, the holiday staff are the people who drew the short straws – but there they are on the air, behind the scenes, writing stories and generating the news we consume daily, without fail, even during our most cherished holidays.

My point? Where the holidays may be a time when you think it’s okay to be less proactive with your marketing, it’s not a good time to slack off with the media. In fact, with so many people being home for the holidays, it’s the perfect time to be on the air and in the news. And, for that reason, now is a critical time to ramp up for a big media push.

You see, the media people who are planning to take off during the holidays are still responsible for generating content while they are gone. Now, for radio that often means compiling “best of” shows that can air in place of regularly scheduled shows, or it’s simply seeing who at the station draws the short straw to guest host a show over the holidays. Competition is even tighter for TV so many TV hosts actually stick around through the holidays.  All in all, the battle for advertising dollars is so fierce that some shows just stay on the air, business as usual.

The key difference is with print and online news outlets, both short and long leads. They typically take the next few months to plan and prepare that content so it can fill space when they are off enjoying themselves. These folks don’t have to sit in front of a mike or stand in front of a camera, so they can have their pieces sitting in the hopper to run, while they are off making merry.

So if you have a PR campaign in progress, now is the time for the full court press to make the most of the fresh broadcast airtime available before the holidays, and more importantly, to push your print efforts while those guys are planning their holiday copy needs.

And, if you don’t have a current campaign, it’s the perfect time to start. Just know that no one would ever call you a Scrooge if you decided to keep your PR campaign on the job right on through New Year’s.  It’s just smart business.

I tend to use this space as a “how to” venue. I like to share my insights on how to get the media excited about you, your message, your products, your services and books. My hope is that the information I offer will enable you to generate media placements for yourself to further your public relations efforts.

However, I’m frequently asked about the value of PR in relation to the business goals it’s designed to enhance. People wonder what will happen if they’re able to achieve a picture-perfect PR campaign and get the media to notice them and generate coverage for them. They wonder if the upside is increased sales, or if it’s in the branding or maybe it’s just the increased exposure for their company or projects or their book.

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is a bit more complicated than that. First thing’s first. When we do a print campaign, for instance, we rate it based on the reach of the publications in traditional print outlets and online outlets. We use two key terms – circulation and visitors per month (VPM) – and while one of those terms is old and the other is new, they are based on the same principle.

When we use the term VPM, we’re applying it to the online publications in the same way that newspapers and magazines use circulation figures to apply to their audience numbers.

Back in those primitive days before the Internet, when paper and ink were still a popular means of communication, PR firms rated the success of their print campaigns by adding up the circulation figures of the newspapers and magazines in which they got coverage for their clients.  So if an article was written about you in the Philadelphia Inquirer that would be rated as a pretty good hit, because that paper has a circulation of about 300,000 readers daily. Now that’s not to say all 300,000 people read the article that was about you. It’s simply a measure of the potential readers of your article.

Then along came the Internet.  We now live in a time in which almost every newspaper or magazine article is repurposed online and more people get their news online than offline. In an attempt to present advertisers with a “circulation” figure for the Internet versions of their print publications, publishers created the tracking of unique visitors to their news pages, and that number is called VPM.

For example, if we place an article on a Web site like the Huffington Post, which has a VPM of 22 million, it doesn’t mean that 22 million people are reading your story. It just means that your story was placed on a site that has an online “circulation” of 22 million. It’s just like the Philadelphia Inquirer example above, where the circulation of that publication is 300,000, but there’s no way to calculate how many of those 300,000 readers actually read your article.

So VPM is simply a “circulation” figure for the Internet and it’s how campaigns are tracked in the era of new media, which isn’t much different than the way it was tracked “back in the day.”

Just as in the above example, it’s also impossible to track specifically how many people watched your TV segment or heard your radio interview. The ratings systems for TV shows are not specific enough to track who was watching at the moment you were on the air, and the ratings system for radio is not universally used, so extrapolating accurate numbers for specific days and times is also near impossible.

With radio PR for example, the measures we look at are the size of the market, the wattage of the station (5,000 watts is good, 500, not so much) and in the case of national radio shows, how many stations carry the show through syndication. These are broader brushstrokes than what people can achieve through advertising on the Internet and tracking clickthroughs, but it is also far less expensive. In online advertising campaigns, advertisers can track exactly who visited their Web site, what Web site referred them, what they viewed on the site and even how many minutes they spent on each page. Coming from that experience, it can sometimes be difficult for marketers to understand why the same kind of granular audience analysis doesn’t exist in PR.

But, keep in mind advertisers are paying for that infrastructure with their fees, which are often many times the cost of a solid PR campaign. In addition, those ad campaigns lack the power of third-party verification that exists in PR – when a host has you as a guest on a radio or TV show it’s a tacit endorsement of you as an expert.  It’s someone of authority saying you’re credible and authoritative in your field. With advertising, the media savvy audience knows you paid for the space, so the only credibility those ads carry is that you had enough money to buy the ads.

How does all that factor into your bottom lines? Well, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, because reaching a lot of people with your message does not equate to making them want to buy what you’re selling. So many other elements are factors in the “buy” decision – your Web site, your specific product or service, the topic of your book if there’s one in play, your price point compared to your competitors, your distribution and availability – I could go on and on here. The truth is that both PR and advertising can only inform your potential customers that you, and what you are marketing, exists.

In the case of PR, it not only informs people, but it also adds credibility to your reputation, as PR coverage carries more “endorsement” weight than any advertisement you can ever purchase.

The key idea to take away from all this is that you won’t necessarily make sales just because you’re doing PR, but you’ll be hard-pressed to make sales without it.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the shopping’s so delightful

So since we’ve got cash to blow

Let it go, let it go, let it go.

Okay, so I’m no Burt Bacharach, but you get the idea.

The fourth quarter – that holiday spending season between October and December – is still a month and a half away, so I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m riffing on a holiday classic. My point is that the holidays is when consumers and businesses make a disproportionate amount of purchases compared to the rest of the year, but just because they spend the money in Q4 doesn’t mean that’s when they also make the decisions on what to spend it on.Since the last recession, consumers have gotten smarter about budgeting their money in advance of the holidays. In fact, one of our own clients, Lou Scatigna – a financial planner who is known as the Financial Physician – offered tips to consumers on how to plan for the holidays around this same time last year.  That article became one of the highest circulated pieces we ever offered the news media, because they knew it would resonate with their audiences.  From that one article we booked a number of TV appearances and more than 100 million in combined circulation and visitors per month in print and online coverage. As you’re sitting around waiting for holiday sales, consumers are researching what they are going to spend their money on right now.

Moreover, businesses also spend a lot of money at the end of the year, as many of their fiscal years are winding down. Every corporate department is in the process of making projections for their budget needs for next year. The problem is, if they still have unspent money in this year’s budget, they need to spend it by the year’s end, or else they won’t be able to justify a similar budget level for next year. In other words, they have to use it or lose it. So, if you market products or services to businesses, many of them will also be looking to empty their budgets. Will they be spending that money on you or your competitors?

For PR firms, our main concern is that the media is also preparing for the holidays in a big way right now. August and September is when many publications prepare their holiday gift guides, end of year analyses, holiday retail predictions and lists of the hottest products they believe will fly off the shelves the day after Thanksgiving. So, if you want to be mentioned, you’d best get yourself in front of them now, because if you wait until November, all those sections will already be finished. And if you’re interested in doing some radio or TV interviews, now is the time to carve out space on the media’s calendar for when the holiday push begins. There is only so much airtime and space for articles, and if you’re late, you’ll be crowded out.

If you’ve ever read those holiday shopping guides in the major newspapers and Web sites and wondered how your competitors got in, but you didn’t, that’s why. They started as the summer was still smoldering and the autumn breeze was just waking up. If you wait for the cold, that’s where you’ll be left – out in the cold.

That’s why no matter if you market to corporations or consumers or both, you have to get the word out about yourselves right now. If you’re not on the radar screen as these people are planning how to spend their money, you won’t be the ones to make the sales when they are ready to spread that holiday cheer around.

Oh, and Lou wanted me to remind you – only about 12 more paychecks until the holidays. Will you have enough time to save up to make your shopping rounds? We’re getting that pitch for him out this week, so he’ll be on the air soon to tell you all about. Will you be watching him at home, or meeting him in the green room as you wait for your segment to be taped?

“So why did you write your book?”

They won’t ask it, not because they don’t know you’re an author nor because they’re being rude. They won’t ask because the media doesn’t exist to help authors sell books. The media exists to create content that informs and entertains its audience, so that their audience stays tuned in. The more audience they have, the more advertising dollars they can charge for their print space and air time. Audiences are what make them money.

This is one of the most common disconnects we usually see with those who are new to the game of PR. Authors expect they can use the media as a venue to talk about their books, while the media is only interested in them for their expertise and the information or entertainment they can offer their audiences.

But, there is a wide gulf between using an interview to wax philosophic about why you wrote a book and giving an information-packed or fun-filled interview aimed at holding the interest of the audience. So here are a few things to remember when preparing for media interviews:

1. “What’s In It For Me?” – The success of your interview, whether your audience stays tuned into you or tunes out, will depend largely on whether or not you tell them how your information will help them. No one knows this formula better than producers, hosts, editors and journalists whose livelihoods depend on keeping their audiences tuned in. They’re slaves to the audience – they know if they can’t hold them, they’ll lose them. And, if the audience goes, so does the advertising revenue and possibly their job.
2. Make it Fast– Today, the media has far less time and space than it ever has in its history. Ratings and readership figures are transmitted electronically, tracking not only what media you are consuming, but how much, for how long and when. They have it down to the minute. That doesn’t mean that we are reading less or have shorter attention spans. It means there is a lot more competition for our attention than ever before.We have radio and TV shows, movies, the Internet as well as content for our smartphones and PDAs. Media is delivered to us on plasma screens in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, in the airport as we wait for our flights and even at the pump as we gas up our cars. As a result of the competition for our attention, the media gives us much more information, in a variety of ways, faster than ever before. For the media, it’s as much about how much content as it is about how fast they can give it to us. Most TV interviews are in the 3-5 minute range, and radio interviews are in the 5-10 minute range. In print, a 500-word article is about the medium length most people will find. In USA Today, only a handful of stories ever break the 500 word mark. They want to give you more, faster. So when an author is offered an interview with the media, they better be able to provide helpful information that will leave an impression and be able to do it quickly, because their air time is so limited.
3. Walk the Tightrope– The media knows the dance. You are offering your time and expertise to their audience in exchange for exposure of your book. But if during the interview you say things like, “In my book, I wrote…,” it will be a short interview. However, if your interview fills the host’s need for delivering an entertaining and informative interview, they will do the promotion for you by mentioning your book and even your Web site on the air.But, even more important than the media’s perception of being overly promotional when interviewed on the air, is the consumer’s perception. It is a universal truth that consumers don’t like being sold. They don’t like commercials (which is why they fast forward past them on their DVRs), or shopping for cars at a dealership. They don’t like banner ads, spam, or a landscape cluttered with billboards. So the clue here is – don’t sell! Instead, inform, entertain and, in doing so, you’ll build the audience’s trust. And, one thing is for sure – no one puts their money on the counter without there being some level of trust that they are getting something of value in exchange for whatever it is they are purchasing.

The bottom line is that in order to get value from your media exposure, you have to offer value to the media first. Otherwise, you will forever be on the outside, looking in, as your competitors get the air time and media exposure you want for yourself.

Maybe it’s me, but I read something the other day that made me wonder if I’m the only one who doesn’t see the logic here.

The Nielsen Company tracks the audience viewership of TV programs so that programmers and advertisers can get a handle on how many people are watching certain shows. Programmers take that data and figure out how much they’ll charge to advertise on their shows. Of course, they pay attention to key demographics and more granular statistics, but at the end of the day, this is the data that helps them figure out that they’re going to charge $3 million per minute to advertise on The Super Bowl broadcast and $1 – $3.80 per minute on reruns of the recent reboot of Hawaii Five-0.

I think I’ve got that right, but now Nielsen is tracking ratings for shows people record and watch on their DVRs later. They even have it segmented to track people who watch shows on the same day they record it and up to 7 days afterward. I just have one question, and forgive me if I seem obtuse here, “Why?”

Most people fast-forward through the commercials when they watch their favorite show on their DVR. I know I do. Even Nielsen acknowledges the phenomenon. They reported in 2010 that of the 33 percent of Americans that own a DVR, 56 percent fast-forward through commercials. Of course, this was not a survey of general Americans, but rather of Nielsen families who are accustomed to keeping an electronic diary of their viewing. So maybe they’re on slightly better behavior than the rest of us.

The key thing I’m wondering about is how much longer does the TV commercial have as an advertising tool? The trend is clear that the DVR is becoming more common and that people are typically using it to avoid the constant barrage of advertising they are subjected to every day. Billboards on the highway, commercials on the radio, banners and pop ups on the Internet, people are simply tired of the constant assault of advertising on their senses. So they use the DVR, they switch stations on the car radio when the commercials come on and many even choose more scenic routes for their morning commutes.

The upshot is this, as people reject advertising more and more, what happens between the commercials becomes more important. That’s why PR is still the best value for the money, because no matter what technology people come up with to block or ignore advertisements, they only do so because they are far more interested in what is happening on the shows they watch and listen to, and the publications they read online and offline. Moreover, advertisements lack any kind of third-party verification, and consumers have become so media savvy, they know the difference between an ad and a show. They know advertisers pay big money for those spots on The Super Bowl and on their favorite shows, and they understand that they control their messages. They also know, and generally trust, the editorial side of the media. That’s what they read online, what they listen to on radio and what they tune into when they watch TV.

You can’t buy that kind of trust with an ad and the only way you can get on the air or in editorial print coverage is through PR.

So don’t mourn for the TV commercial just yet. But feel free to wave as you pass it by on your way to your TV interview.

They really shouldn’t be treated the same. That’s why I’ve written a booklet called 50 Tips to Make You A Great Radio Guest and a similar piece for TV. Now I am compiling interview tips for working with print and online journalists (which in many cases can be the same thing). This will be the first of three articles, so stay tuned for the others over the next two weeks.

Here are the first five tips:

• Be Responsive – In TV and radio, interview times are pre-arranged. However, print and online journalists typically have daily and weekly deadlines. When they call you, they need you right then! In many cases, journalists will reach out to several experts on a news item and then choose the one who is the better interview or whoever responded quickest (or a combination of the two). The more reliably you respond, the more likely they will call on you again.
• It’s Not About You – Most journalists are not interested in you, but rather the expert commentary you can provide. The more you use the words “I” and “my” the less likely they will use you as a source. When speaking to a reporter, keep in mind you are speaking to their audience, so keep your remarks centered on what their audience cares about and you’ll be quoted early and often.
• Read Before You Talk – If you get a call from a publication, take five minutes to go online and read a few of their stories. Look for their tone and approach, so your tone and approach will match. Also look for articles they wrote on your topic, so you can avoid duplicating what someone else said. Finally, read articles written by the journalist you’ll be speaking with. There is no better way to prepare for a print or online interview than to read the writings of the reporter interviewing you. You can discover his or her focus, audience and philosophy. The reporter can tell if you’ve read his or her articles through your comments and will respect you for having made the effort to prepare for them.
• Don’t Empty Your Notebook – Beat reporters – journalists who cover a particular topic or industry – tend to be experts in that field from their time covering it for their respective publications. They don’t need, nor do they want, your soup-to-nuts take on that topic. They need only a few quotes and opinions to round out their stories. Answer direct questions with direct answers, and get to the point quickly. There’s no need to tell the reporter everything you know, emptying your notebook of all your collected knowledge, in order to have a good interview. Allowing an interview to devolve into you talking about your total philosophy on a particular topic or business will result in your interview landing in the discard pile, and the reporter will likely seek a comment from your competitor instead.
• Be Professional – Reporters don’t call you to talk about the weather, last night’s TV, your kids, etc. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve come across people who think a little friendly chit chat can “grease the wheels.” If they engage you, that’s one thing. It’s entirely another if you waste their time with unwanted “schmoozing.” Most have deadlines to meet and their time is valuable. Many outlets are working with significantly smaller writing staff than a year ago. Respect their time and they’ll respect you.

There’s more to a good print interview and in the next two weeks I will share more tips. If you follow this advice, you’ll discover your interviewers will respond better to you, use more of the interview in their actual articles and maybe even call you back for more quotes when they work on other stories. At the end of the day, these tips will help you be prepared so that when your name is mentioned in the media, readers will know they are getting advice from someone who truly knows what he or she is talking about.

Part and parcel of my being a PR professional is to subsist on a vast daily diet of news digested the old fashioned way. I read newspapers and magazines, and at night and in the morning I watch a lot of television news programs, with a pretty even mix of straight-up news broadcasts and “talking head” panel shows.

My chief strategist calls that “old school.” He still reads the equivalent of two newspapers a day and he watches news broadcasts and talking head shows, as well – but he does it all online in smaller bites. He has a lot of hands-on PR work to do each day, so he can’t devote hours upon hours every day the way I do.

His solution is to use the Internet to get a condensed snapshot of the news. That still gives him the general idea of current trends in the news cycle, while still affording him the time to get his work done. In speaking with him about his process it dawned on us that many entrepreneurs and C-level executives may have the same quandary – wanting to stay on top of news trends to guide their PR campaigns without having enough time to do so.

He shared with me his process and I wanted to pass it onto you:

• News Aggregators – On the Internet, there are three primary news aggregators – Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Between these three sites, you will find most everything you need to read regarding national headlines. Moreover, you will be able to discern how important each story is in the media. The beauty of these aggregators is that they place the news in “at a glance” style boxes so that a quick perusal of the front pages tells you the major stories of the day.
• Trending – Until now it has been difficult to tell what people care about in the headlines, but Yahoo and a few other smaller sites have added a section to their front page called “Trends” or “Trending.” In these sections, they list the names or topics that are most searched. With these links, you can see who or what the general public seems to care about most. For instance, on any given day, a Washington policy initiative may dominate the national news headlines, but the number one story trending might be about Heidi Montag having more plastic surgery. This section can sometimes contain popular nuggets that might give you or your company something trendy to use as a launching pad for a story.
• Local – In most every news homepage of these aggregators, there is a tab or a link that reads “local.” This tab will open your local news headlines of the day by inputting your zip code.
• Category Links – If you go to the main news page on any of the aggregators, they will always include sub-links to major categories of news – National, Politics, International, Finance, Entertainment, Local, Odd News (like the wire story of the person who found a piece of toast with the impression of the Virgin Mary and sold it on e-Bay) and others. Think creatively about your company or industry, and check some of these categories from time to time to make sure that a good outside-the-box news peg isn’t waiting under the layers for you to find.

According to the Pew Institute for Media Research, about 85 percent of the news content that people read online comes from reliable print outlet origins. It’s simply been repurposed for online consumption. So, these articles are from the sources you respect – Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Times – but they all appear aggregated in the same place.

Don’t feel that this is the only way to digest the news. Even understanding his method, I’m still fond of doing it my way. I can’t even imagine starting my day without my morning cup of coffee in one hand, newspaper in another while at the same time watching the morning news shows!

At the end of the day, the key thing is to read the news, whichever way fits your schedule and your needs. It will not only help you guide your PR campaign – it will simply keep you more informed.