Opportunity or Risk?

Engaging with journalists in the contemporary media environment is an activity rich with opportunity but also fraught with danger. The risk that your point of view is misunderstood, misrepresented and misreported is real. Our approach is to better equip organisations and their spokespeople to be more effective in their engagement with media by equipping them with knowledge, practical skills and also a broad view of the media agenda.

Rather than deter organisations from engaging with the news media, this approach builds confident and successful media relationships which deliver the desired result – positive profiling for brands and individuals in the publications and news bulletins which are highly prized.

In the context of thought leadership designed to build profile in valuable markets or influence the attitudes and behaviour of important customers and stakeholders, the confidence and performance capability of spokespeople can never be underestimated.

This is particularly critically when communicating a complex situation or technical concept to an audience without prior knowledge. Journalists are experienced information gatherers and, to some degree interpreters, but they are not content specialists. Like anyone new to an idea or perspective, they need clear information, often repeated and presented in multiple different ways, in order to truly comprehend. This is where skill is needed to craft and deliver key messages which are both ‘understandable’ and ‘sticky’.

Whether your media interaction is via a face-to-face interview – with or without the support of a written media release – clarity, brevity and a solid understanding of the news agenda is critical to success.

It’s the AFR or bust…

The value of mainstream media coverage is already well understood but industry and niche media opportunities are commonly overlooked or considered to be the ‘poor cousin’ to coverage in, for example, the Australian Financial Review or The Australian newspapers. 

Consider this… a passionate readership (listenership or viewership) where 100 per cent of the audience is intently interested in 100 per cent of the content presented! That is the opportunity that industry and special-interest media presents so on a comparative basis a thought leadership strategy which includes these media outlet represents terrific return on effort and investment. National media is important and valuable of course, but there are commentary opportunities worth considering which go way beyond these outlets.

The fact remains though that an effective engagement strategy, a strong message and a good spokespeople are key regardless of the media you’re looking to target.