| Building and Protecting your Reputation |
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It's a funny old world. A lot's been going on this year, but next year is saying "Hold my beer".
There's a new US President in January. There's a COVID vaccine arriving in January. The UK will be leaving the European Union in January. I wonder what will happen in February?
But as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr used to say "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
We'll still be posting on social media, watching Netflix, and trying to figure out which bubbles we can have in our tier.
And a lot of people will still be struggling. As you know, I like to offer my support to musicians, and there's a fabulous one this week in my web radio show. One way that I support them is via a site called Patreon, which allows artists to set up special features for regular donors. I support a US musician called Jim Boggia, and a UK solo artist called David Knopfler (yes, that Knopfler family). David has just released his latest album, and thanked his supporters who helped to fund it. That's what I call collaboration. I hope to chat to him on my show soon about his work. |
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For us speakers, online is the only way to go for a while.
Accordingly, I've steered my annual speaker coaching programme very firmly into helping you develop those virtual skills.
Drop me a line or give me a call to discuss the details of how I can be in your corner for the whole of 2021. Two places remain.
Here's the link. |
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Suzanne Dibble is a business lawyer who has a breadth of experience unlike pretty much any other business lawyer in the UK. She understands the big business issues but also knows what is important to small businesses.
I spoke to her about the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, and the importance of getting the right terms into contracts, as well as an advice service she runs which is invaluable for small businesses.
Hear our conversation in the Media Coach Radio Show.
And there's a great song from David Knopfler |
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The MediaMaestro is Alys Tomlinson who has just won the Taylor Wessing Prize for portrait photography, held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
She produced a series of portraits of school leavers dressed for proms that never took place because of the coronavirus pandemic.
She said she wanted to show her subjects' "vulnerability, sadness [and] resilience".
That's what she's done. Well done to her.
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The MediaMug is Amazon. An outage with Amazon's web infrastructure left smart-home enthusiasts unable to use basic household items.
A widespread US outage late on Wednesday disrupted many of those services. Robot vacuums and smart doorbells suddenly stopped working in people's homes.
Owners of Amazon's own Ring smart doorbells also suddenly found the device no longer worked at all.
"We are aware of a service interruption impacting Ring," the company said. "We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding."
"I... can't vacuum... because US-east-1 [region] is down," read one popular tweet, from LinkedIn's top information security official, Geoff Belknap.
"Welcome to the future," replied another user.
The iRobot company, makers of the popular Roomba robot vacuum, acknowledged the widespread problem.
"An Amazon AWS outage is currently impacting our iRobot Home App," it said.
Well, that's one excuse for not doing the cleaning.....
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| Speaking Tip - It's a conversation |
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A speech should never be a monologue. Leave those to actors and poets. Although you do most of the talking (unless you have a serious heckler), you still get feedback in the form of expressions, body language, laughter and applause. You need to be responsive to the signs. In order to do that, you need be aware of your audience, not bury your head in your script.
Your audience does not want you to talk at them. They don't want you to talk to them. They want you to talk with them. This reinforces the sense that you and your audience are "in this together", on the same side. A speaker that ignores the response of an audience can appear confrontational, while one who appears not to notice an audience at all can appear distant. Neither of these approaches will help you to deliver your message.
The way that you look at the camera, the way you gesture towards your audience and the way you move can all have a significant effect on how you are perceived. Stand-up comedians will alter their act, bringing forward their best material from the end of their performance if they aren't getting laughs. You also need to be prepared to adapt if the audience are not in tune with what you are saying. For example, if many members of the audience seem puzzled, you may need to go back a few steps and explain yourself in more detail. On the other hand, if they look bored, you may need to pick up the pace.
It's a conversation. |
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| Media Tip - Anything you'd like to add? |
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I was listening to the head of a retail business being interviewed on the radio recently. He gave a good account of how his business was coping with tough times, and outlined some ideas for serving customers even better. Then the interviewer said "Thank you. In the few seconds we have left, is there anything you'd like to add?" I leaned towards the radio, anticipating a golden sound bite. "Er..no, not really" was the response. I must admit, I shouted at the radio. (Yes, I know it's a one-way device).
The thing is, you should always have a sound bite handy for exactly that situation (and several others). You will rarely be asked such an open-ended question, but you should try to deliver your core massage in your last response in every case. It's a golden opportunity to leave the listener with something they are likely to remember, especially if you have already created a good impression earlier in the interview.
If you don't have a core message, you shouldn't be doing the interview. It doesn't matter what you are asked, your job is to make sure that message gets across, ideally several times, and most definitely in your last answer.
The same technique works equally well on television, and can be even more effective when speaking to a web journalist. Save your best until last, and deliver a precise, memorable phrase that you want the audience to remember. And by the way, it you were that retail boss, my website is mediacoach.co.uk.
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| Social Media Tip - The gift of feedback |
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Feedback can be hard to generate, even if you have worked really hard to craft what you think is an incredibly valuable social media post.
Feedback on social media generally comes in the form of comments, though some people also enjoy monitoring the number of likes that their posts receive, assuming that an abundance of likes will lead to many more people seeing the post. Some people even resort to purchasing likes (no, not you obviously).
In fact the Facebook algorithm is not very impressed by likes. Though they may be good for the ego, they aren't going to put your words of wisdom in front of many people. It's better to receive comments, which will help to promote your posts far more effectively.
However, best of all are shares. If your post is shared repeatedly, it will appear on more and more feeds. The trouble is, Facebook demotes posts that actually ask for shares.
So, in order to generate the most effective form of feedback (shares), there's an old trick known to social media gurus and handed down through the generations. I'm going to share it with you (yes, I know what I did there). It's simply producing great content.
Don't mention it.
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| The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk." |
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