Want to get your business some attention on mainstream media? Who can blame you? If you've got the kind of business that would benefit from exposure to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or more people, then television is the most well established platform for that.

Not every business is the kind that needs that kind of exposure, but many are. Maybe yours is.

Personally, I've used my background as a tech expert to provide support for many TV news stories over the years. Many of them have been with Emmy award winning former TV news journalist, Tim Waller. The last 25 years of Tim's career have been spent in TV journalism. This year he decided it was time for him to do something new and he made the jump to helping people understand the business he has been part of for so long.

Tim Waller has a passion for helping people and a lifetime of experience in TV news. Since we meet people and businesses at Tech After Five with great ideas that could benefit from more people knowing about them, we decided to grab Tim and ask him a few questions about how we can go about pitching our organizations to TV news.

He starts off by telling us some of the things we definitely should NOT do:

Don't pitch a story that the reporter can’t cover
Don't bury the important idea in a pile of obfuscatory text
Don’t be annoying

We then go on to talk about some things you definitely should do:

Make your story newsworthy (There are tricks to that.)
- Make it now.
- Make it big
- Localize a national story
- Make it targeted
Give access to real people
-Be prepared for that interview
Bring your news to the front!
- Sell it!
- Have fun!
- Be interesting!
- Be dynamic!

Tim offers lots of great tips and the episode is well worth a listen if you'd like to promote your organization using TV news shows.

BONUS:

We are going to do a follow up episode where Tim answers YOUR QUESTIONS about publicity! You can post your questions on Twitter @TechAfterFive, email them to us at podcast@ta5.com or leave them on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TechAfterFive. We will collect those questions and then produce a new episode with answers!

Our guest:

Tim Waller is an Emmy award-winning reporter-turned-PR guru who will tell great stories about you! Earned media coverage is his specialty.

Your hosts for this episode:

Phil Yanov is the Founder and Lead Community Organizer of Tech After Five. (TechAfterFive.com)

Scott Pfeiffer helps entrepreneurs succeed and partnerships thrive @ Mind Your Own Business.

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Tech After Five offers live, face to face networking events for I. T. professionals. Whether you are looking for tech talent or you are talent looking for the next step in your career, we offer a path towards connection. Sign up for event announcements, networking classes and tips an our website https://techafterfive.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. @TechAfterFive.

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Tech After FiveBy Phil YanovJun 07, 2023