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BY TJ Walker Let’s say you or your publicist has talked to a reporter and they are kinda sorta interested in doing a segment that may or may not feature you. This is a squishy situation where you can be left hanging very easily. Here’s what I recommend: Quickly (and I mean in 5 minutes…

BY TJ Walker As mentioned earlier, the best way to be a real big wig in the social media world is to be a big wig in the traditional media world—not always, but it sure can help. When you look at many of the most trafficked videos on YouTube, they are often the most interesting

BY TJ Walker Major broadcast network TV shows and syndicated programs will often want to do what is called a pre-interview with you before committing to a final booking with you. So you may have impressed a booker on the Today Show or Oprah enough to call you and express interest in you based on

BY TJ Walker There are many ways of marking milestones when it comes to your progress with creating social media videos. Of course it’s nice when things are as simple as 10 million views on your YouTube “views” counter. One key indicator is that people start expecting and looking for and even asking for your

  BY TJ Walker To me, the ultimate payoff is when a prospect calls me and already knows who I am and why I can solve their problems. When I ask, “how did you find me?” They respond “You are everywhere!” It’s not just that they found me on Google. It’s not just seeing gazillion

BY TJ Walker My advice on editing social media videos is to do this: don’t. That’s right; I’m suggesting that you don’t bother editing. Instead, recording “live to tape” (even though you aren’t using tape in all likelihood) is the better way to go. While editing has gotten simpler, cheaper and faster over the years,

BY TJ Walker When most people create a YouTube video from the road or attempt to do a TV interview via Skype, they look and sound awful. Here’s why. Poor lighting. They have lighting behind them or above them and it makes their face look dark. \Bad audio. The built-in microphone in most laptops simply

BY TJ Walker 1.       You can have greater message control because it is harder, more difficult and more time consuming for people to edit down your answers. Do if you keep you video to 90 seconds or less, chances are other media outlets, bloggers etc, will just run you r whole video rather than taking

BY TJ Walker One of the most widely viewed videos I ever shot for YouTube was one I spent exactly 24 seconds preparing and thinking about and 66 seconds shooting it. I uploaded it without so much as remembering to even give it a description. It was a simple critique of the speaking skills of

BY TJ Walker Any way you can get more people to see you is usually a good thing. For example, one time I was on the CBS Early Show discussing ways people can get over their public speaking fears and showcasing a book I wrote on that subject. The good news was that this was

BY TJ Walker Frankly? It doesn’t matter. Sure, all things being equal, use the highest quality camera you can find. But most people waste way too much time trying to figure out the best camera. Instead, they should focus on creating as much interesting and compelling talking head videos as possible. Personally, I use the

BY TJ Walker No and No. It may seem paradoxical, but the more you give away on the Internet, the more you will get back. Your number one problem in your business life is not that people have too much of your free content, ideas and videos. Your #1 problem is obscurity! Unless you are

BY TJ Walker The point of this book is not to make you an internet video star. Unless you are a world-class comic, a hot chick willing to get naked or a weird guy willing to drink pee, you aren’t going to become famous on the internet with your videos. But you CAN become well

BY TJ Walker When people say “at Internet speed” they mean quick—really quick! Victory does not go to the slow and plodding when it comes to talk head video on the Internet. As I write this today, news reports came in at 4:07 that Great Britain finally had a new Prime Minister. I was in

BY TJ Walker A foolish consistency may be the hob goblin of little minds, but there is nothing foolish about making it really easy for people to experience you and your ideas on a regular basis. Oprah may be a great host, but how successful do you think she’d be if she just put out

BY TJ Walker If you really want to use the medium of social media video for maximum effectiveness you have to be on the lookout for ideas every day. The best mentality to have is to think of yourself as a TV or radio producer in charge of a daily show, like Larry King or

BY TJ Walker Start by figuring out what your area of expertise is and where your passions lie. Next, you must find something that is currently being talked about in the news. You need a news hook if you want a chance of having people find your videos. For example, if I record a video

BY TJ Walker You can save yourself massive amounts of time, energy and frustration if you don’t try to script out what you say for your talking head videos. Once you start writing a script it becomes a never ending process of writing, editing, re-writing, and revising. Even if this did help you end up

BY TJ Walker I am a big believer that you should strive to do all of your social media videos in just one take. Of course, if I make an obvious misstatement of fact or my brain freezes, I will stop the recording it delete, and then start over. Bt my estimate this happens about

When it comes to using internet videos, simple talking head videos are better than slick videos for many reasons:   1.                They take less time to produce. 2.               They take less money to produce. 3.               They take less equipment to produce. 4.               They take less technological knowledge to produce. 5.               You give reporters, editors, bookers

BY TJ Walker It’s simple, do a new video every day, or at least several times a week. Basically, as frequently as you blog or write emails to customers or prospects, you can do videos too. I am constantly amazed when the following thing happens in my audience. I will have an executive sitting in

BY TJ Walker Thanks to Internet technology and its low cost, it’s never been easier or more likely for you to do a satellite remote interview. I do them all the time now. For most people, this is the hardest type of interview to do because it is such a strange environment: you can’t see

BY TJ Walker You should prepare the same way you do for any other talk radio interview, but try to keep a couple of differences in mind. Most internet radio shows don’t have a very large live audience. Most people will hear you on demand. And that means your messages and material should not be

BY TJ Walker You say “yes!” and you do a little dance of joy! If a reporter is doing a text-based story on you and is now willing to do a video interview with you, this means you are getting a two-for-one special–that’s nice at the local Wal-Mart and in your PR campaign as well.

As long as it takes, is the short answer, but it is more complicated than that. Some Internet sensations like Gary Vaernerchuck of TV Wine library does videos of 10-30 minutes of lengths—long by conventional Internet standards. And yet he is widely viewed and wildly successful. And there are millions of 30 second videos on

When most people create a YouTube video from the road or attempt to do a TV interview via Skype, they look and sound awful. Here’s why. Poor lighting. They have lighting behind them or above them and it makes their face look dark. \Bad audio. The built-in microphone in most laptops simply isn’t good enough.

BY TJ Walker Yes. Anything you do in a text format, you should also do in a video format. You don’t have to hire Spielberg or Lucas to direct; just talk to a webcam and put out your ideas. The phrase “video blog” means a lot of different things to different people, in the same

No. This is a frivolous worry. The chances of you ever becoming overexposed are slim and none. Yes, there is a danger of you receiving too much negative publicity if you fail to communicate properly during a crisis, but bad exposure is not the same thing as overexposure. The reality is that it’s truly hard

My advice? Do ‘em all. Sure, if you are a high profile, conservative TV preacher you mind not want to do an interview with a hard-core pornographic magazine like Hustler. And if you are the President of the United States you can’t do 987 interviews a day even though you might have that many requests.

If you really want to be successful with the media, then you had better be assessable 24/7. No one in the media cares what is convenient to you. Unless you are already ultra famous, if you say no to their request for a 6 A.M on set interview, they are likely to consider that a

During a crisis, preparation for the media should be done exactly the same as you prepare for any other media interview. Everything is the same, except that everything is different. Everything is the same in that you need to have identified your top three messages. You need to have good sound bites. And you need

A part of your message and your ability to communicate effectively through the media is based on who you are as a person. Are your credible? Are you legitimate? Do you have the character needed to be considered legitimate in the area you are discussing? The media and the public can be very fickle and

Before every media interview, you must decide what your goal is. The vast majority of the time most people are better off focusing on a specific, 3-part message. However, they may be times when you are a part of a larger trend or news-related story where you don’t really have a specific message you care

Watch the video of your interview. If it wasn’t a TV interview, then watch the video of yourself that you created using a Flip or other small, portable video camera. Write down everything you liked about how you came across. Make a note to do more of the things you liked in this interview in

No, I don’t mean what the toughest question is that a reporter might ask. And I don’t even mean what is the #1 message you are trying to convey. Instead, the big question is “what do you want people to do after they have read, heard or seen your message?” That is the strategic starting

Look in a mirror. Make sure your hair looks the way you want it to. Make sure nothing is stuck on your teeth. Ensure that your makeup is evenly applied.

More and more people are watching TV in HD these days. When everyone is watching all video on an HD screen, what you were on TV or video interviews won’t matter so much as long as you look good in person—because they way people see you on HD TV is very similar to how they

Media literacy used to mean you could read a newspaper (this thing called paper that had news printed on it) and watch TV newscasts and have some understanding of what is going on. These days, even kindergarteners can do that. To truly be considered media iterate today you must be able to create media in

All of my clients are different in that they all have different messages and styles they want to communicate through the media. And yet everyone is the same. It doesn’t matter if my client is a President of a country, a US Senator, a Prime minister, a CEO, a billionaire fund manager, a professional athlete

Like with any other aspect in life or business, it’s good to have some specific goals beyond merely showing up! Most people don’t get much out of their media encounters because they don’t have any specific, quantifiable goals going into the interview. If you don’t have any goals, then it’s easy not to fail, but