The Media Coach

Hi John,

We just spent some time in Margate, which we last visited when the sea front had been turned into a film set for the filming of Empire of Light.

This time we were visiting an artist friend who took us to one of his favourite haunts - The Fez Bar, a tiny place with an extraordinary display of bits and pieces attached to every surface.

I can highly recommend the place, especially on a Tuesday night, when a group of local musicians get together for an ad-hoc ukelele session.

It's impossible to describe, but it was a terrific evening singing along with the band, in a space so small that you're effectively in the band wherever you sit.

So if you're ever in Margate on a Tuesday, go and spend the evening with The Fezuleles. You'll have a wonderful time.

The announcement this week from the Victoria and Albert Museum that they have acquired David Bowie's archive, and will be putting it on display in 2025 provides a great opportunity for Glam Rock fans.

The Bowie archive will be displayed at the new V&A museum in Olympic Park, East London. That's a few hundred yards from the ABBA arena (I know I keep mentioning it).

So you could spend all day immersed in Bowieania (is that a word?) and then spend the evening with ABBA.

We're just up the road, so we'll be taking bookings for our spare bedroom.

The biopic of Elvis Presley, directed by Baz Lurhmann and starring Austin Butler has been getting a lot of attention in the film awards season.

It's full of wonderful music, much of it recorded specially for the film. My radio guest this week id JD Simo, a Nashville-based guitarist who played most of the guitar parts for the film soundtrack.

I spoke to him about his career, his work with Baz Luhrmann, and how film soundtracks are put together. It was utterly fascinating.

Listen to our chat in the Media Coach Radio Show.

And of course, my show features an original song by JD Simo, and it's a real cracker!

The MediaMug this week is the European Commission, which has just banned the use of TikTok by its staff. Let's see how that turns out.

The commission said it was implementing the measure to "protect data and increase cybersecurity".

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has faced allegations that it harvests users' data and hands it to the Chinese government.

TikTok insists it operates no differently from other social media.

Clearly, videos of people dancing are seen as dangerous. TikTok may soon have another use, that of a job resource with the idea that prospective employment seekers would send in videos rather than traditional resumes. The form would most likely be a job search add-on. Clearly they won't be applying to work at the European Commission.

Can you really back up what you say on stage? Is your speech really web-proof? Now that just about every member of your audience has a smart phones or tablet, you'd better be able to justify your assertions. They will check.

There is no getting away with quoting the 1953 Harvard Goals Study (it never happened) or the "7% of communication is words" (untrue, and disowned by the original researcher, Albert Mehrabian).

Of course, not everything on the Internet (or in Wikipedia) is true, but it's easy to verify if things ever took place. So whenever you start a sentence with "Studies have shown that..." or "It's well-known that...", you'd better be sure of your ground. If your statements can't be verified, your credibility is gone.

So my advice is to be your own fact-checker. Look up everything you claim in your speeches, and be prepared to deal with the consequences of your audience doing the same.

It used to be said that you could fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time. These days, you can't fool any of the people any of the time.

Here are four things about media relations that are "popular wisdom", which are also "wrong".

1) Once I'm on national TV, I've made it. Wrong for several reasons. A one-off appearance is quickly forgotten. Your time will be limited. Local TV and radio has a more loyal audience. Being on national TV may be good for the ego, but may not be the best thing for your business.

2) All publicity is good publicity. Try asking any organisation that's handled a media crisis badly if that is true for them (BP or Volkswagen, for example). Bad publicity is bad, and good publicity is good.

3) Getting press mentions is a matter of luck. Though there's sometimes an element of good fortune, most press mentions of an organisation or individual are the result of careful planning, combined with perfect timing. You won't get mentioned every time you contact the press, but there are a lot of things you can do to increase your chance of coverage.

4) Only bad news gets reported. While the old adage "it if bleeds, it leads" still has a lot of truth to it, there is also a demand for good news stories, especially about the economy. If you are creating jobs, increasing exports or building a successful company, your story will appeal to journalists, especially if you have a local angle.

There are many ways to gain friends on Facebook, but also many ways to lose them. I'm presuming that your aim is the former, so I've listed a number of techniques that I've seen people employ in the hope of getting more connections, but which end up having exactly the opposite effect. Not that you'd do any of these things, of course, but sometimes it's useful to observe how others get things wrong.

1. Tagging in unrelated images. I'm sure you've been a victim of this one. You see a notification that you've been tagged in a post, and when you take a look it's an image with a motivational cliche or an advert for an event.

2. A personal attack. However strongly you feel about an issue, there's no point being rude to someone who disagrees (even if they started it). Just walk away, in a virtual manner.

3. One-track posts. Posting on one theme all the time, such as motivational quotes, is dull in the extreme.

4. Telling people what to do. Advice is fine, since people can choose to take it or ignore it. Instruction is quite different. Telling someone that they simply must take the course of action you suggest is arrogant and rude.

5. Sending personal messages to strangers. There's an etiquette here. If you haven't had any connection with someone, don't send them a PM.

6. Adding people to groups. This is incredibly rude. Adding people to your group without asking first is like online kidnapping. Don't do it.



So there you go. On the other hand, if you are polite, helpful and respectful of the views of others, you'll have plenty of friends.

There's a film editor who loves to remake film trailers with his cat in a leading role...



If you're looking for a speaker this year, just get in touch. I now have all inclusive pricing.