Rather than fight the onslaught of wrapping paper, pumpkin spice, and Christmas tunes that pervade the end of the year, you can use the holiday season to your advantage. Although you might be tempted to slow operations down as November and December approach, the holidays present a good opportunity to leverage cheery public sentiment and push public relations efforts.
One way to do so is by celebrating your company and the past year’s achievements. For example, if your team has undergone restructuring and/or worked hard in the past year, put up a social media post with a photo of your team stating your gratitude over Thanksgiving. Before New Year’s Eve hits, post on the company blog your top five business achievements for the year, or include them in a Christmas letter sent out to clients. You can also use the holiday season to mix and mingle. Throw a holiday-themed networking event for potential clients, or arrange a holiday-themed fundraising event for a client/cause your company supports. You can celebrate the holidays and promote your business at the same time.
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Difficult situations often produce the wrong response when it comes to media relations and crisis communications. The instinct to run and hide just won't cut it.
Your long term success will hinge on how well people see you as forthcoming. People judge character. They want to see someone who can be trusted, someone they can believe, someone they see as doing everything possible to fix the problem. Tell the truth, to the extent that you can. If there are details you're not allowed to discuss, explain why. In a nutshell: do the right thing. That includes responding in a timely manner. Mack Communications | @mack_comm Tell your story: don't leave it to the media to get it right. You'd be surprised at how many businesses and organizations do exactly the opposite. Whether it's fear of the media or a bunker mentality, that kind of thinking is usually a recipe for badly damaged media relations.
How do you tell your story? Over explain the issue and the response. While you're dealing with the media, take the same information directly to the public through social media and your own website. The goal for any crisis communications plan is to control your message while you control the crisis. If you don't, you suddenly have two crises, the original event and a secondary crisis of a poor response.
You need three key tools for effectively communicating during a crisis: 1. Planning It's important to have a plan in place so that you're able to manage your message and respond to the media in a timely manner. A plan involves selecting key personnel and what responsibilities they will have, a point person for social media, a media distribution list and determining your media staging area if you believe one will be needed. That's just to get the ball rolling. We began one of our recent media training seminars by asking the attendees to imagine that just outside the door were a reporter and camera crew from one of the local TV stations ready to interview them. How would they feel?
Most agreed the butterflies were already fluttering. One person asked if there was an exit in the back of the room. Many of us have such a reaction when it comes to facing the media. A reporter with a note pad, microphone and camera is intimidating. Facing a press conference with multiple cameras and microphones can at first seem like a nightmare. So, how to remain confident in front of the media? One of the best ways to turn off a reporter to your story is with what at least appears to be a self-serving press release. If you're prone to brag, you might think again about how your release or statement looks through the eyes of someone who has to write a legitimate news story. There are three keys to keep in mind. Great media relations is really hard work. It's where the term "earned media" gets its name. And while technology is making it easier and easier to get your press release into the hands of reporters and editors, it's also much tougher to get them to pay attention.
Don't gloss over that last point. It's really tough to get the media to pay attention. So, how can you improve your odds? Twitter can be a great tool for communicating your brand and your news. Far from the days when people were tweeting what they had for lunch, businesses are embracing Twitter for effective customer service and interaction within their industry.
This post from hubspot.com looks at 10 of the best brands on Twitter and shows examples of how they use Twitter to consistently tweet out great content. As you read, think about how you can harness the power of Twitter to push out your press releases and your own blog content to reach members of the media. We've found reporters use Twitter as a virtual wire service and often pick up story ideas throughout the day. Follow us on Twitter: @mack_comm Answering questions from reporters can be brutal. The questions can be sharp and direct, putting you on the defensive. You need your own defensive measures to stay in control of the interview.
One of the easiest to spot is the false premise. The question that's being asked is phrased in such a way that it may be impossible to answer and still get your point across. The best move to make is to rephrase the question. "What I think you're really asking..." you might say. Or, "What I think the real issue is...." By rephrasing the question, you answer the question you'd like to answer rather than the one the reporter asked. There's more to what you say than just your wordsSo, you're fortunate enough to secure a live interview on your local television station. There's more involved than the key message points you need to deliver. You also need to think about how you appear on camera. When it comes to eye contact, you're going to want to focus primarily on the host. Don't try to speak to the camera. Relax and talk to the interviewer as if you're having a friendly conversation. |
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