Tips for securing media airtime

Take media training – Ensure that your organisation’s representative can speak to the subject matter, know how to respond under pressure, and how to navigate difficult or unexpected questions.

Develop a second tier of media spokespeople – Given the same people aren’t always available, identify and train a variety of spokespeople that best represent your brand and can relate to the target audiences on your different platforms.

Become more “media friendly”; provide rapid response – Being able to deliver what the media needs, when they need it, is half the battle won.  It’s therefore important to be accessible and to ensure your contact is helpful and timeous in their responses.

Own an issue – Identify and focus on a small number of key issues. By associating your organisation with a hot-button issue, you build up legitimacy and credibility with the media and the public, prioritising you as first port of call when comment is required.

Have a plan – Plan how you can create and maximise opportunities for positive coverage by creating a calendar of intervention, i.e. finding the opportunities to link stories to significant moments or holidays as is relevant to your work. (E.g. Human Right’s Day, Women’s Month, State of the Nation Address etc.)

Create valuable content – What’s important is to continue to find creative ways to package and present content in ways that are relatable, interesting and continue to keep the audience engaged.