Increasing Your Media Quotient (MQ) – Part Three

By Thomas Murrell MBA, CSP – International Business Speaker

Television is one of the most powerful forms of media. The visual aspect provides people with additional emotional stimulation and is seen by a large audience.

But a lot of what is done in an actual TV interview is often disregarded. How can you ensure your message not only gets across, but stays across?

Here is the third part of a series of interviews on how individuals as well as companies can raise their media quotient or MQ.

Interviewer: Do you have any tips for those who may be interviewed on TV?

Thomas Murrell: TV is all about pictures and being visually appealing. It is more important to concentrate on how you look and the location than what you say. Keep it short with memorable “quotable quotes” or sound bites.

Interviewer: Can you give an example of a good sound bite for the area of accent reduction?

Thomas Murrell: Alliteration, metaphors and stories make good sound bites. I can’t think of one immediately but a favourite sound bite came in a press conference from a famous black athlete announcing he was coming out of retirement.

He said …. “I’m bored, I’m broke and I’m back!” – you can see how the media loved this. Give me your message and we can work on it now.

Interviewer: Ok – well key themes would be improving clarity to increase opportunity for work and social activities i.e. people feel more confident if they have to repeat themselves less often, so frustration all round is greatly reduced.

Thomas Murrell: “Consistently increasing clarity improves confidence” for example.

Interviewer: Great – a little alliteration!

Thomas Murrell: Or use a metaphor – “improving clarity is like improving your sight. When you work on clarity it is like putting on a pair of glasses and you can see the world a whole lot clearer and how others see you and this can really brighten up your world.”

Interviewer: I see that the time is nearly up. On behalf of everyone taking part in this online forum, thanks for sharing your expertise with us so others can benefit from some excellent tips on using the media more productively. Thanks again for your time Tom.

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