Preparing For Your Interview With the Media

One of the most important roles we play as a PR agency is preparing our partners for media interviews. We passionately believe that inserting yourself, as a thought leader in the industry is just as important as getting press coverage for your products and services of your company. That is why we make it a priority to coach our partners on how to effectively deliver their messages that connect with readers and reporters alike. Here is our essential recipe for making the idea interviewee.

Step 1: Adding Your Dry Ingredients

Every good recipe starts with a base, flours, sugar, yeast, and other dry ingredients that can lay the groundwork for the flavors and textures that get added to differentiate one recipe from another. Our dry ingredients are rather simple, but vital to the foundation of becoming a good interviewee.

Ingredients include:

1. Knowing what the journalist expects out of the interview

One of the most common fears amongst people, just behind maybe bugs, rodents, and heights is the fear of the unknown. No sane person likes to walk into a situation completely in the dark of what to expect, yet many CEOs and spokespeople for companies do this to journalists every day. Journalist’s do not want to come into an interview, especially for an industry like blockchain that is still shrouded in confusion and mystery to many in the mainstream segments, with little-to-no information on what to expect from the sit-down. Instead, make sure to have a simple, conversational exchange prior to the interview, asking the journalists expectations. That way you are ready to address the right questions and the journalist can feel more confident when trusting you when what you say goes beyond what they understand.

2. What topics do they like to write about?

Every journalist likes to write differently and will cherry pick your conversation accordingly. We are all uniquely interested in different things. Whereas one reporter may love anecdotal discussions about more than just your platform or token, others may want to know the gritty details of the tech behind your innovations. Reading one or two articles by the person who is going to be interviewing you or someone on your team will pay off in-terms of better coverage if you are speaking to their interest rather than in generalizations.

3. Who is their primary audience?

This question is a lot like the last, as the audience of any given journalist is often simply an extension of that persons opinions and tastes. In a world where social media influence plays a huge factor in the world of journalism, being able to properly pivot your messages to any particular audience is a great skill to start sharpening up.

4. Is the journalist knowledgeable about blockchain? Do they have an apparent bias?

One or two years ago, this question was irrelevant, as there just were not enough reporters well-versed in blockchain. However, with the surge of attention and accolade that 2017 brought to the industry, many reporters in the FinTech space have taken keen interest in learning all they can about blockchain, and people from within the cryptocurrency world have begun branching out into reporting for the media at-large. This makes assessing the knowledge of your potential interviewers a must in any pre-interview vetting you and your team are doing. Biases exist and knowing how to address them, avoid them, or embrace them in an interview can actually help lay groundwork for a long-term relationship with that given reporter.

5. The interview format

Know the interview format, whether it will be in person at your office or a public space, phone or Google Hangout, written over email or messenger, podcast recording, video call, and so on. Knowing this can help you prepare for long-form answers or concise ones, intimate anecdotes or sweeping generalizations, and so forth. Length of the interview becomes important as well, with a new trend of long-form podcasts and video interviews, being able to tailor your answers to fit the length of time the journalist has will make them happy campers by making their jobs easier when it comes to editing and putting together the final product.

Anticipate the tough questions

• Prepare a Q&A document that contains difficult and tough questions with answers that incorporate key messages.
• These questions may be controversial, about current events, about the region you are located, politics, other companies, etc

“Remember that your company is not all that a reporter is interested in — they are interested in you.”

Step 2: Mixing in the secret ingredients

Alright, alright, so we may not add Grandma’s Love to our interviews (or maybe you do, we’re cool with it), but it goes without saying that every person, CEO, or team member of a company has a different way to get the same message across, and we need to be able to utilize this special sauce to make you stand-out as a truly unique voice in your space. That means we need to spend time defining a message.

2 Cups of Defining Your Message

Never, and I mean never ever-ever-ever just read your company’s mission statement verbatim from the press release to a reporter. You need to spend time outlining your key message instead. This means we need to first discover what your key message is and then add two or three supporting points that you can expound upon: think college paper thesis statement. Keep the outline simple and memorize the highlights, so that way you can rest assured that you will remain on-topic and cover your entire intended message.

Next we got to frame your story so that it will fit with the style and tone of the journalists writing/reporting. Some journalists, especially long-form podcasts or YouTubers love to take a conversational approach to the topics, whereas a more traditional media outlet will have a stricter set of expectations, so make sure you understand how to frame your story in multiple ways, because the journalists know how their readers absorb the stories, and you want to make sure you can relate to them why they should care about your work.

Avoid jargon…

Do I even need to expand on that? Jargon, in any industry is just a fancy way to showoff that you are really smart, so let’s just leave the talk of arbitrage, airdrops, and shit coins for the next blockchain conference or around the water cooler. Choose easy to understand words that bring more clarity to the industry for outsiders rather than less. Choose simple similes over niche anecdotes, and overall just try to speak to each audience with respect instead of condescension. Ultimately, try to say the things that you are willing to see in printed words.

Step 3: It’s time to bake your batch

Delivery is the next step after preparation, and you must make sure you are delivering a message that is concise and clear. When talking to a journalist, acknowledge that they may not have the same level of understanding or background that you do in the subject, and hopefully your preparation will takeover and help you subconsciously tailor your responses accordingly.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein

When talking to a journalist, particularly when you are being recorded, it is very easy to speed up, so you should remember to slow down your speech. If it feels uncomfortably slow to you, more likely it is the perfect pacing for playback on camera.

The lighting on camera is something else that plays a role in your delivery, because they can often be very harsh. Knowing this, please never refuse makeup if it is offered to you by a professional team. Nobody watching is going to care that you have a little makeup on, but they will care if you are glistening like the ghosts of your past.

Always have at least three key selling points about your company sitting in your back pocket. Being able to explain, quickly, why your product or platform is relevant as either a tag to another question or as a way to pivot back on topic depending on the type of interview is a great trick to remember so you don’t lose your intent during the interview. Getting sidetracked is a main track reporters like to ride on with you when they can, as it can make for compelling headlines if you are less than prepared for those type of forks.

Avoid monologuing, Shakespeare. Your company, products, innovations can be exciting and your passion for it will resonate just fine if you are able to stay on-track without diving into a ten minute soliloquy. The same goes with the temptations to digress into sweeping statements about the industry at-large. Journalist love to hear your insights on the macro, but remember to keep even these clear and concise as well; otherwise, you risk alienating the readers or viewers altogether.

If you’re dying for a good monologue, you can satiate yourself by watching this:

Step 4: It all comes down to presentation

After you have delivered you may think the story is done and out there as another node in the chain. However, good press is far more fungible than that and if you prepare your follow-up game correctly you will begin to enter into the position we call Thought Leadership.

Showing Thought Leadership

Remember that your company is not all that a reporter is interested in, they are interested in you. Reporters are always looking for a story; that means a narrative, a thread to follow, something that educates and entertains, while still being newsworthy. That is a lot to package together, if you are not experienced at it, and that is why thought leadership has become such a necessary skill for executives to rise to the top of the contact lists of reporters. Solid memorable messages, quotes, and statistics for their article always make a better story.

All your preparation will make you able to deliver your key messages, quotes, and statistics on your brand that will instantly add credibility and interest to the interview for the reporter and their audience.

Garnish your dish

Make sure to mention:

• Quotes
• Statistics
• Current Events
• Industry Trends
• Interesting and relevant asides
• Insights from your unique angle

Thought leadership isn’t just about knowing everything there is to know about your niche of the industry though, and the best thought leaders are able to anticipate the thought questions and be ready to tackle anything they are hit with, and that means you are constantly going through the preparation-phase, mixing in new ingredients with every news cycle.

At the same time, don’t feel you have to answer every question.

In the climate we currently live in, a lot of people are called upon to add their own color-commentary on things way outside their normal jurisdiction, and well, enough people are jumping at the chance to do that. Our advice is always to understand if the question deals with an area too far outside your area of expertise, and if it is, do not feel compelled to give your two cents. There are enough people doing that already, so remember irrespective of the question and whether you can answer it. It’s as simple as ABC (Acknowledge, Bridge and Communicate), people experienced with the media do it all the time, they acknowledge the question, bridge to what they want to say and then communicate their key message. Don’t lie or speak in sweeping generalizations, instead say something as simple as, “That’s a good point, but it’s not my area of expertise.”

Then pivot away by using bridges like:

“What I really think is important is…”

“This brings me back to what I mentioned earlier…”

“I think the key issue is….”

Final Step: Clean up after yourself

The old saying goes a chef never cleans their own kitchen. However, if you have read this far and still believe you are a chef and we are making a Michelin Star meal, then we’re clearly we are on the internet for two very different reasons, so here is a nice recipe for Bitcoin Cookies — enjoy!

End of the Interview

If you are still with me, then the final steps is sharing those final thoughts, summarizing your messages, and reinforcing the essential topics discussed. This is especially important in long-form interviews to recap or give added insight for those people who like to skip around in longer audio/video content.

This is also a great chance for you to plug your own access points (social media accounts) and your brands, but it is also the best place to share something extra. It lets the journalist know that you are an expert on various topics, setting the stage for you to be called upon in future articles for quotes and opinions (thought leader status~).

And, I wish it went without saying, but never leave without saying:

Recipes are hard and that is why people love themselves a good Blue Apron or Pizza delivery. However, when we properly prepare ourselves, the results almost always are ten times as rewarding and fruitful than what we would otherwise achieve. That is why we take our time and put a lot of time and care into coaching our partners for any and all media relations. There are no shortcuts in building trust, so use this recipe for your next successful interview.

If you want a cheat sheet of this very article, sign-up for our email newsletter over at www.spacemademedia.com/coach