Public Relations Practice & Skillset (Week 3)
Interview Etiquette
DO:
- Remember names and roles
- Bring business cards
- Turn off your mobile phone
- Ask interviewers about themselves
- Make it informal, informative
- and interactive.
DON’T:
- Get bogged down with press materials
- Ask when they’ll write about you
- Be condescending or act like a salesperson
- Read verbatim from a presentation
- Get angry at disagreement
- Mumble or speak too loudly
- Criticise the competition or start industry rumours
- Answer questions if you don’t know the answers
- Say anything you would be unhappy to see in print.
Bridging Strategies
Using journalists; topics to your advantage and turn
negatives into positives:
For example, “market situation” to “market ownership”, “major
disruption” to “seamless transition”, “complex and difficult” to “challenging”
... etc.
Types of Interviewing
Telephone
- Probably majority of contact today
- Unless pre-booked, make no instant response
- Give yourself thinking/focus time
- Write down questions
- Obtain background detail/deadlines
- Agree a time
- Call back on deadline after consultation
- Always fulfill your promise
However, there is the risk
of the lack of physical contact reduces relationship/control and communications
effectiveness, the agenda may need to be re-orientated and confirmed numerous
times and questions may have to be repeated which can become tedious.
Radio
- Whether live or edited this is you
- Radio does not allow reflective silence!
- Briefing and preparation vital
- Craft key messages as easily-delivered phrases ("Sound-bites")
- Responses … slow for control … simple for easy comprehension
- Focus on pitch … depth is credible
- Defensively: Develop thinking time responses
- Aggressively: Lead with responses which pull questions, pull the interview
Television
- You are the majority of the message
- Backdrop and context are much of the rest
- Make simple, focused movements
- Expand: Be slightly larger than life (10%)
- As for radio ... Lead with responses which pull questions, pull the interview
Internet
- Formal online, chatroom or social media, no change
- Medium like any other
- Only more direct, more varied, sometimes more instant, often more influential
- BUT same rules apply.
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