Making the Most of Your Media Opportunities in Uncertain Times

BLOG: Making the Most of Your Media Opportunities in Uncertain Times

Given the impact of COVID19 on all our lives, it's become clear that alongside key logistics and operational matters, communication is the central issue in the success or failure of the fight against coronavirus.

Here's our guide to Making the Most of Your Media Opportunities, whether digital in-house video for your own channels, or mainstream broadcast.

1. Narrative – what do we want the public to think, feel, or do?

Pinpointing corporate positioning and prepare key messages in advance (four to five max.)
Test it from the perspective of the audience - will the messages resonate?
Have an embedded call to action if you can

2. Be authentic

Respond authentically. What you say and how you say it should reflect your values as a brand / business
Acknowledge responsibility, if you need to do so, but stay action focused on what are you doing to address the situation

3. Be factual

Deal in what you know and use reliable, trusted sources
And be honest about what you don't know - conjecture does not have a place in crisis communications

4. Ensure heads of comms are at the top table

Every decision has a comms implication, exploring scenarios up front will help you to identify reputational risks early
Include your senior comms lead from the 'off', do not make them an operational after-thought

5. Replace your reactive media strategy with a proactive one

Effectively build trust by being visible and available
Careful executive positioning can inoculate an organisation against future scrutiny or crisis
Develop an in-house Digital Newsroom using videography, digital press releases, podcasts, gifs, other visuals and social channels to create interesting, effective messaging tools.

6. Ensure your SLT is media trained so that you have a cast-list of options

Media enquiries may come thick and fast, having only one spokesperson could limit your opportunities to engage
Have a range of personalities - the empathetic one, the inspiring one, the hard liner (think John, Paul, George & Ringo!)
Ensure your spokespeople are credible, expert and confident - media training can help

7. Keep reputation management at the heart of your comms function

Ensure that you have a Reputation Management Group comprising decision-makers on its board
Meet regularly to spot risk issues that may affect reputation down the line
Ensure it has power to act and is not just a ‘talking shop’

8. Listen and respond to feedback from staff, customers and stakeholders

Monitoring dialogue at all levels is key to understanding where issues lie - establish listening platforms early on
Feedback from your teams will help you gauge public/media perception and adjust your communications accordingly
Ensure internal comms can feed back great staff stories to play into your external comms strategy
Be empathetic and prepared to flex and respond to those important to your business

For more information on engaging and speaking to the media, or creating your own Digital Newsroom during times of crisis, get in touch; dave@mentortraining.org.uk

[Dave has been a journalist for more than 30 years, was a founder and launch voice of Somerset’s first commercial radio station, Orchard FM in 1989, going on to present and produce programmes at HTV West, BBC Radio 5 and Radio 1, ITV News, and Breakfast TV station, GMTV.

He is the author of the media training bible, 'Handling the Media in Good Times & Bad', published by Rudling House.]

Article Author: Dave Mason

Dave is Mentor Media Training's Managing Director. He is a CIPR Accredited Practitioner and regularly trains for the PR industry institute. His extensive career in broadcasting spans 30 years across radio and television. He has coached executives from major public and private sector organisations, as well as the UK Armed Forces/NATO, around the world for the past decade. Dave is respected for his inspiring training, which is supportive and concentrates on fast learning development. A founding presenter and shareholder of Somerset’s Orchard FM, he went on to work extensively in commercial radio around the UK, as well as BBC News, where he was a Correspondent at BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 1 Newsbeat. Dave has been a TV presenter, reporter and producer at ITN, GMTV, (ITV Breakfast), ITV News Westcountry and HTV West. He was one of GMTV’s senior producers for a decade, covering major international, domestic, political and entertainment stories. His roles have included senior news producing and planning, undercover investigations, war reporting and features production. Dave still broadcasts as a crisis communications pundit on Talk TV / Radio, BBC Radio and is a visiting lecturer at several universities. He is a non-executive Trustee of community station Radio Bath and the author of 'Handling the Media In Good Times & Bad'.