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Success With The Press
How to create a media toolkit and media-savvy members
By Shane Shapiro, Communications Director, New Jersey Association of REALTORS®
When you or your members have an opportunity for a media interview, will you be ready? The media represents your association’s best opportunity to communicate with the public and to influence elected, business, and civic leaders.
To ensure that your association portrays a consistently professional image, you’ll need to turn your association leaders into association spokespersons. To accomplish that, you’ll need to create the resources to facilitate interviews between the media and your members, prewrite speeches and statements, and develop relationships with local reporters. With a thorough media plan, your association can become the first place reporters turn for real estate information.
Turn members into spokespersons
To a reporter, your members are a direct link to the mind of the real estate professional, and to a large extent, to the mind of the consumer. Realtors® regularly interact with buyers and sellers and are privy to their fears, dreams, and hopes.
A quote from your association spokespersons printed in the local newspaper could influence the market, the community, elected officials, and industry leaders in allied fields. Your president’s statement to the media brings credibility and publicity to the association.
Of course, every association has members and leadership with varying levels of communications skills. Many members may not be able to craft elegant quotes or recite the latest home sales figures accurately on the fly. With preparation, you can help them and your association get your message across effectively.
That preparation includes educating members to the fact that during press interviews, they are no longer individuals or even simply professionals. They are speaking on behalf of consumers, Realtors®, the community, and the association.
When reporters call to interview a professional who represents your association, they expect:
1. To reach leadership quickly.
2. That leadership knows more about the topic at hand than the reporters do.
3. That leadership will be cooperative and willing to share their thoughts and expertise.
4. That basic association and executive information, as well as photos, will be conveniently available.
5. That basic market information, such as current and historic mean pricing, median pricing, and sales activity levels, be readily available.
Manage media contacts
Reporters will usually contact your association for an interview by telephone. To maximize the opportunity to connect with a reporter, make sure that your telephone reception staff is trained to collect all pertinent information, including the reporter’s name, telephone number, and station or publication; the topic and type of interview requested (for print or broadcast); the reporter’s deadline and his or her preferred interview date, time, and location; and any specific information he or she might require, such as market statistics, trends, or technical data.
Your telephone receptionist might also be trained to immediately contact your designated spokesperson or other members, depending on the topic of the interview.
Reporters understand that professional people are not always available by deadline and that real estate professionals are on the go. However, if your association’s representative does not connect with the reporter soon after he or she calls, the reporter will try another contact--and your organization will lose the opportunity.
Associations need to make it easy for the media to count on them for quick response in order to create a good working relationship with the press.
One way to foster such relationships is for AEs to contact each reporter after the interview is over. Find out what kind of stories each reporter writes, and whether he or she prefers to receive press releases by mail, fax, or e-mail. Maintain these contacts and compile them in your media database. A day will come when they may help you promote your cause.
On occasion, a media inquiry may focus on issues clearly outside of your association’s experience. In such circumstances, call the reporter back, thank him or her, and explain that you will be declining the interview. You may want to recommend another credible source for the interview. This practice would be an association-specific public relations policy decision.
Create talking points
It’s important for associations not only to make presidents and spokespersons aware of the value of the media-association relationship, but also to arm them for the media spotlight.
Prewritten talking points and speeches build confidence among association leadership and facilitate media relationships. To create talking points, work with your leaders to develop a list of issues and their position on each that they would like to air (for example, support for a particular planned community or opposition to a community “For Sale” sign ban). For each point, list its importance, relevant arguments and facts, other experts on the subject, and resources for further information.
Then, for each talking point, craft a paragraph, a 10-word sentence, and a five-word memorable quote that sums up each point. Depending upon the context of the interview, the prepared paragraph, the sentence, or the quote might be exactly what the reporter needs. Remember, the fewer words you use, the less likely the statement will be misquoted. Your spokespeople should memorize the details of each talking point so that they can call on that information at any time.
Get consensus within your association on the type of information that is proprietary and that which lends itself to publicity. Remember that once you release information to the press, it is forever in the public domain.
Most interviews in which members are likely to participate discuss changes in the market, such as supply, demand, homeowners’ rights, finance rates, and environmental and regulatory issues.
However, your spokespersons cannot afford to come to an interview unprepared. Have a ready-to-go list of the most likely reporter questions along with the relevant statistics and facts.
Prepare for the tough questions
Most interviews are not confrontational, but there are exceptions. You may be asked questions that are ill-informed or that are intentionally unbalanced to create reader interest. A successful spokesperson will be prepared to correct a reporter’s unbalanced questions.
For example, in a recent TV interview, a reporter asked a representative for the Air Pilots Association if the association favored arming pilots with handguns. The spokesperson deftly corrected the question by saying that the real issue should be, “Is the public entitled to that last measure of protection?” By framing the question in the context of the audience’s priorities, rather than the reporter’s, the APA’s message got through, unedited, on prime time network television.
When answering questions, spokespersons need to be aware of what might mislead the public and make sure they respond only to questions framed so that the answers can be candid and honest, not speculative.
Your spokesperson must never forget that he or she is the expert. Think of the reporter as a conduit between the spokesperson’s message and the public. For the reporter to sell the story, the interview has to be all about getting the public the information they need.
Your association’s spokespersons can also avoid being derailed by unbalanced questions by framing their comments in terms of the public interest. Consider transitional statements like:
* That’s a good question, but what the public really wants to know is ...
* You’re right. However we should also consider the view of ... who feels that ...
* We’ve found that we’ve been able to move forward by ... For example ...
Framing the responses with these transitions results in more honest comments. In fact, once you get back on track after an unbalanced question, you can go right back to your main talking points. Respect the reporter’s point, but respect the audience’s needs even more.
Stock your toolbox
Certain information should be prepared in advance and immediately available for any interview or media request. Have the following available to send via mail, fax, and e-mail: executive biographies, your association’s biography, publicity photos, photos of relevant events, and which staff member to contact. Also, post this information on your Web site in a clearly marked “news media” section that can also house recent press releases and basic market information, such as median sales price, average sales price and number of transactions in the area for the current month and quarter, for the last month and quarter, and for one year ago. (For more on market information, see “The Power of Numbers, p. 24.)
Sound fresh, current, and thorough
Spokespersons should be able to discuss trends and cite underlying statistical information extemporaneously.
Read the local and the regional newspapers’ real estate sections. Stay current on the issues covered by the press. When a regional paper covers a story, the local and weekly papers and radio stations often cover the same story the following week. Anticipate that the local press will expect your spokespersons to weigh in with the local take on the story for their next deadline. And if you have a formal public relations program, call reporters proactively to pitch stories.
To have your members interviewed as expert sources, pair the editorial needs of the local newspaper with your members’ knowledge base. Most media have an editorial calendar of future real estate articles and a reporter dedicated to real estate topics. Make sure you can give reporters a list of members with expertise to match upcoming topics.
Although you might think that you’re being asked to do the reporter’s job for them, this is not the case. They are calling on you because you are the most expeditious way to get the information that their audience needs. And if you distill the information to arrive at a well-founded conclusion, you’ll have the makings of a great interview.
Media Tools
There is a wealth of information available from NAR to help you build your media toolkit including prewritten speeches and press releases on current topics for your association spokespersons. NAR also has its position papers available online. Visit the Association Executives page of Realtor.org and click on “PR Tools for AEs” under Tools on the right.
Spokesperson Tips
Spokespeople who have mastered a few simple techniques about how to be interviewed find that they can overcome the risk involved and turn the media into a terrific ally.
To become a good spokesperson:
1) Have something newsworthy to say.
2) Build upon your expertise.
3) Be accessible, candid, and honest.
4) Recognize that relationships with the media are a two-way street.
5) Never go “off the record” or say “no comment.”
6) Don’t use jargon and limit use of statistics. But do use anecdotes, metaphors, and colorful phrases.
7) Try not to take media calls cold. Get their questions and offer to call them back once
you’ve gathered resources and composed your thoughts.
8) Correct misstatements or errors quickly and promise to get back to reporter if
an answer is not at hand.
9) Keep answers brief; try not to ramble.
10) Don’t speculate.
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