Use Your Meeting to Build "Media IQ"

What’s the “Media IQ” of your members?

Association meetings are the ideal venue to provide a valuable service to your members: Media Training.

Association leaders and staff play a critical role in representing your industry or profession to the media and the public. They are your industry, and whatever they say to the media will carry far greater credibility and first-person experience than anything an executive of the association staff can say. They are a tremendous resource!

However, members haven’t always received the media training to do this most effectively. With the right training, they can work as partners with the association staff to ensure that your messages reach the media in the best way possible.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do association staff and members all communicate the same core messages about the industry and the association?
• Are they skilled at “bridging” techniques to move seamlessly from reporter questions to answers that reinforce key messages? 
• Do they know how to handle hostile reporters? 
• Do they know when and how to refer a priority media call to the right industry expert?
• Do members know how they can be proactive advocates of your profession or industry in their everyday dealings with the media?
• Do you often wonder why so many association members are quoted in the media, but none ever mention the association?

These are just a few of the issues that can be covered in a special hands-on session on media training held at your next convention or meeting. It can be a targeted session for your top leaders, or structured as an educational offering for the broader membership.

Just a few of the tips members can learn in media training include:

• No matter what questions the reporter asks, find a way to deliver your key messages in a positive way.

• You’re always “on the record.”
• “No comment” is not an option.
• Don’t talk too much – just deliver your key messages and stop talking. The more you talk, the more likely it is that the reporter will use irrelevant or less important information, possibly out of context.     
• Every interview is a chance to develop and maintain relationships with reporters who cover your industry.
• Make it easy for the reporter to get background information and follow up with you – provide fact sheets, web address, business card, contact information for follow-up questions.
• Always follow up with a reporter if you said you’d get back to them with more information.
• At the end of the call most reporters will ask, “Is there anything I’ve missed/you want to add?” Use this as an opportunity to restate your key messages.

Dealing with the media is a fact of life in the association world, and associations that are prepared are the ones that will gain favorable coverage.

Many media may also attend your meeting, and a media training session at the front end of the event can be put to immediate use to benefit your association and create positive publicity for your program.

Best of all, media training can be fun. Mock television interviews, for example, held in a safe environment such as a media training session can provide valuable experience in a dramatic way that all participants will remember. When it’s time for a real-life interview with the broadcast or print media, your leaders and members will be prepared.

Al Rickard, CAE, is president of Association Vision, a communications company based in the Washington, DC area. He can be reached at 703-402-9713 or arickard@associationvision.com.