16 Mar Five Body Language Mistakes To Avoid For Your Television Media Interview

Media coaching is a truly important component of our clients’ overall success strategies. Ensuring our clients are fully prepared means they arrive at every interview coached, confident, and ready to cover carefully thought-through talking points to guarantee a more natural interview flow. These are just a couple of keys for making the best and most successful opportunity a reality. Media coverage may be live or taped and be the length of as little as two minutes and typically no more than five minutes, and the URL link to the interview can last for years! Now, this kind of earned editorial coverage can certainly be a remarkable opportunity to get excited about.

Therefore, we want to make sure our clients have the best possible interview experiences to share on their social media pages, website, e-mail communications, and more, so they are getting the absolute greatest return on investment for their time and shared expertise. That’s why we’ve put together the following tips on body language interview basics to help make you appear as polished and poised as possible.

Here are five, common body language mistakes we’d like you to be aware of, and prevent at all costs, in future media opportunities:

Inauthentic smiling – Whether your interview is of a serious or jovial tone, there should be some authentic smiling involved. After all, you’re meeting a reporter or anchor (on camera) and the audience is meeting you. Smiling authentically means smiling when it feels natural to you. When you meet someone for the first time, people typically deliver a natural smile. However, smiling during an entire interview can come across as inauthentic (especially if the interview is about something serious or tragic, in which case inauthentic smiling can be damaging to your reputation). Though, not smiling at all could make you appear cold, disconnected, and less engaged. Make sure you practice in a mirror or with a friend to determine what kind of smiling at what times feels most natural to you. Finding the smile balance will go far in media interviews.

Lack of eye contact – It may be stemming from the bundle of nerves you’re feeling, or just be a habit, but lack of eye contact can really squash how the reporter, anchor or audience connects with you. A golden rule is to look at the reporter or anchor during the interview and not the camera. Remember, it’s most often a conversation between people, either on a set or “in the field”, as they say. The camera is the observer of the conversation. Sometimes people fall into the trap of looking at the camera the entire time (anchorman style) and neglecting to look at the person talking with them. Keeping good, but natural, eye contact with the reporter will make the conversation feel and appear as comfortable as possible, making the viewer feel at ease, as well. Plus, what you may not know, is that there are usually several cameras (in-studio) recording at different angles, so looking straightaway at one camera might not give the opportunity for best broadcasting.

Fidgeting – Some people are just natural fidgeters (I’m one of them). Hey, there’s even a statistic out there that says fidgeting burns extra calories! While that might be a plus personally, it can also be a hindrance when it’s viewed in an on-camera interview. Fidgeting can be extremely distracting. Taking deep and timed breaths prior to the interview usually calms any nervous energy and sends a message to the body’s nervous system that there is nothing to fight, flee from or fear; you’re going to be okay! And you’re more than okay, you’re about to do something that will generate awareness for your business or organization and provide an opportunity to attract more people toward your primary mission. Here’s a great article on the ‘4-7-8 breathing technique’ that we find very helpful.

Poor posture – Poor posture is a habit that can be pretty hard to break; but during the three-to-five minutes you’re on set, use the ‘fake it until you make it rule’. Sure, working on your posture is good for your health, but usually, that’s a trait that will take, a minimum, a month of dedicated practice to correct. If you don’t have a month, and you want an interview next week, just remember to keep your posture erect and confident during your interview. This applies to whether you’re sitting on a couch on a set, standing in front of a counter or tabletop, or whatever the situation may be. Just remember to straighten up when the camera rolls! A couch-style interview can be relaxing on the body. But, don’t fall into the trap of letting your spine touch the back of the couch or seat. Let your lower body touch all the way, but keep your upper body from resting fully. You can do it! Here’s a good article on posture when sitting on a sofa.

Lack of energy ­– Get fired up! The camera will pick up on energy. This could be positive and high-level energy, or it could be your regular, normal state. For television media interviews, the format is so visual that you may want to pick up your energy just a bit above your ‘normal’. Think about this, most times when you meet a person for the first time, there’s usually a bit of an uptick in energy. This is similar to the type of energy we’re referring to (Note: Tom Cruise jumping on the couch energy may be over the top!).

These five tips are some of the best pieces of advice we can offer to ensure successful media interviews. Media coverage helps your organization with credibility and awareness. Therefore, mastering this short list of tips can certainly serve as a vehicle for reaching your end goal: increasing revenue, credibility, and awareness. That’s why it’s so important we make sure your TV appearance is on-point!

Are you ready to gain TV coverage for yourself or your organization? We help businesses achieve the awareness they deserve for doing great things and telling the right stories. We know how frustrating it can be to want more people to know about your business and, yet, how difficult it can be to get the media to pick up your story idea. We’ve helped hundreds of businesses struggling with these same issues, which they’ve overcome and have flourished while becoming media interview regulars.

For more information, call us at (813) 865-3093 or email info@nspublicrelations.com.