Archive of ‘Media’ category

How Elvis Presley can pump up your pr pitch

By Chanda Temple

An editor with a love for Elvis Presley was impressed by one pitch that highlighted the singer's hometown and more. Image by Play-R via Flickr/Creative Commons.

An editor with a love for Elvis Presley was impressed by one pitch that highlighted the singer’s hometown and more.
Image by Play-R via Flickr/Creative Commons.

Test time: You’ve emailed a national magazine’s deputy editor several times to invite her to profile your small Southern town and it’s connection to Elvis Presley. Although the editor has never responded, you don’t give up. The next time, you take a new approach.

Do you:

A) Pitch how Tupelo, Miss., the birthplace of Elvis, is an emerging, energetic Southern city with a lot of history and appeal

B) Provide a list of locals, with contact info, for the editor to use as a resource

C) Ask the editor to be a judge in an Elvis look-a-like contest

D) All of the above

For the woman pitching to Erin Shaw Street, Southern Living magazine’s deputy editor responsible for managing the publication’s travel and culture content, all three approaches worked. Why? It had a lot to do with timing.

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Why PR pros need a YouTube account

By Chanda Temple

YouTube logo

I live in Birmingham, Ala., where tornadoes rumble across the region every spring. On a recent spring night, I huddled in my hallway closet, put on a bicycle helmet and rode out  severe weather until the storms passed. I used my BlackBerry to tweet about the experience. Luckily, there was no damage in my area.

A reporter from Mobile, Ala. saw my tweets and tweeted me the next day, saying he wanted to talk to me about how I wore my helmet during the storm. (It’s pretty common that people wear some type of helmet during a tornado as a precaution against possible head injuries.) He wanted to use my comments for a story.

Since Mobile is about four hours from Birmingham, I figured we’d do a telephone interview. He had something else in mind.

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Five more things to know about television interviews

By Chanda Temple

Be prepared before you do that TV interview. Image by Barend en Barend via Flickr/CreativeCommons

Be prepared before you do that TV interview.
Image by Barend en Barend via Flickr/CreativeCommons

 

Yesterday, I posted eight things you need to know about doing a live television interview. I received great feedback and decided to post a few more tips. Here they are:

  • Toss the gum 

This should go without saying, but it still needs to be mentioned. If you have gum in your mouth, get rid of it before you appear on television, radio, a podcast or a video. You can’t hide it.

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How to get ready for a television interview

Alabama 13's Ashley Roberts and I took a selfie in the NBC studio before my on-air interview. I decided to wear green because it popped for me. Ashley wore green, too, totally by accident. What a way to usher in spring!

Alabama 13’s Ashley Roberts and I took a selfie in the NBC studio before my on-air interview. I decided to wear green because it popped for me. Ashley wore green, too, totally by accident. What a way to usher in spring!

By Chanda Temple

You’ve booked a live, on-air interview for television. But are you truly ready for the lights, camera and action? Here are some tips to help prepare you:

  • Don’t say, “Um”  
  • Do you know what you sound like when you are talking? Do you have a tendency to say , “um?’’ If you don’t know, record yourself with a  smartphone, video recorder or tape recorder. If you say, “Um’’ more than twice, chances are that you say it a lot. One quick way to kill the “ums’’ is that when you feel it coming on, take a pause and then start talking again. When we say, ‘’um,’’ it’s because we are thinking about what to say next or we are looking for a transition. When we say it a lot, people focus more on our “ums,’’ rather than our message.

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