One of my favorite quotes is Maya Angelou’s, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Unfortunately, in the world of social media today where any moment could go viral or a soundbite could be remixed into its own YouTube song, that saying doesn’t stand so true. As a company executive or spokesperson, what you say on camera or how you communicate online can have a major impact on your business and its financials. Whether it’s a positive or negative impact can highly depend on your media training.
Media training is a crucial investment to a company’s success that often gets overlooked. For effective media relations, executives and spokespeople should regularly undergo training and stay informed of changing media trends. Ultimately, media training equips brand spokespeople with the ability to communicate effectively, authentically and concisely, especially when navigating challenging situations. In the digital age, media training covers more than your traditional media interviews, it enhances your ability to communicate appropriately through different mediums like social media, podcasts and virtual town halls.
The value of training key spokespeople with the skills to communicate through media can help accomplish several things:
- Maintaining credibility for your brand. Communicating authentically is vital for maintaining credibility as a leader. Even when your answers are factual during an interview, it’s the tone, transparency and non-verbal cues that could cost you the trust of your audience. Your message, while clear and concise, should not sound AI-generated. It should help create human connection with your audience. Marriott International’s CEO message to its employees, stakeholders and customers amidst the COVID-19 crisis is an excellent example of this.
- Focusing on what matters. The development of key messages and how to deliver them during an interview is crucial, otherwise, an interview could go in a direction that was not intended, there could be miscommunications, or the purpose of the brand and its message could get lost in the mix. Several techniques can be used to help keep on message concisely and effectively.
- Being prepared for any event. As a company leader, one must be prepared to respond to any potential negative scenario their company could be faced with, that is part of the art of crisis communications. Appropriate media training helps you maintain your composure in high-stress interviews and deliver a clear, thoughtful and effective message. Former CEO of BP Tony Hayward lacked this preparedness in a pivotal interview that would then become one of the most talked about crisis responses in modern history.
Some PR agencies (like ours) offer media training services and support that help a company maintain its reputation and public trust, it simply takes a willingness to invest the time and dedication to enhancing this key area of leadership.
