While media interviews can make even the most experienced professionals anxious, they provide a unique and effective platform to market your wellness business. They allow you to put your name, face and wellness business on the map and are an important part of any marketing and branding strategy. 

For wellness professionals, being interviewed by the media also helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field, setting your business apart from the competition. Traditionally, media interviews tended to include television interviews for the local news or radio station, and radio interviews. With changes in technology, and the everyday use of social platforms, more and more people are turning to other media forms for reliable wellness information. From Facebook Lives, to YouTube to Podcasts, there are countless opportunities for wellness professionals can deliver media interviews. 

However, giving a Live presentation can also be nerve-racking with a high amount of pressure to perform well in an unforgiving environment. With the right preparation and approach, you can deliver an exceptional live performance during the interview that reflects both you and your business. 

Essentially, you want to deliver a valuable message that the audience members will enjoy listening to. Making that long lasting impression is important to both growing your business and spreading awareness amongst the diversity of the viewers listening. If they liked your performance and see your services as being beneficial, it is likely that they will communicate this to their friends, families, and acquaintances through word-of-mouth, and even possibly sharing a link to the interview (if applicable) through other social media outlets such as Facebook or Twitter.

You can also share this through your Healthie account, if you are not a member, click here to sign up for our Free Starter Plan today.

How to Prepare For A Media Interview

There are a few ways to help better prepare yourself before an interview. Focus on what you can do to assist both your performance and walk in feeling confident in responding to your interviewer’s questions.

Familiarize yourself with the reporter — there might not be a lot of information on their website, however, you’ll get a sense of who you will be interviewed by. It’s appealing to an interviewer if you’ve done your research about them because it shows you care. Ultimately, this will reflect the flow of the conversation you two have together.  

Get an overview of questions in advance from the reporter. It looks professional if you ask for a template with questions. You want to have a well thought out idea of the topics you might be discussing. This demonstrates to your reporter that you want to take this seriously, and that you are excited. Don’t agree to present on topics you aren’t comfortable with — the best interviews are ones that feel organic and authentic. So choosing interviews that feel like a right fit for you, your business and your client niche is critical. This extends to products and foods, as well.

Here are some common questions wellness professionals may be asked during a live media interview:

• What are your responsibilities as a wellness professional? 
• What are your personal greatest assets that differentiates you from others in the same field? 
• What food should people eat every day to be healthy?
• Knowing what you know about your job, what are a few things you wish you didn’t have to do or don’t particularly like? 
• Tell me about a success story with one of your clients. 
• What is your best advice when seeing a new client?
• As you know, the health and wellness field has evolved with the presence of social media. How do you feel about setting up a practice virtually, or growing your practice with social media platforms? 
• How do you feel about this new obsession individuals have with wellness? 
• To be successful, do you think you need to have an Instagram as an outlet to market your services?  

Make some time to practice your responses to the questions that you have received. You want to avoid being caught off guard from a question you might not be confident answering. It could be helpful to make a list of the key points you want to address with the reporter and your audience. You want to paint a picture of yourself and how much you achieved as a professional in the wellness industry. As this interview is an opportunity to establish yourself as an expert, spending the time to research the media topic at hand is crucial. You don’t have to know everything, but you do want to feel prepared if there is a rogue question thrown at you.

Mentally Preparing to Go Live:

Today is the day! It’s most important to remain calm, yet be excited today. Right before the interview, you want to feel prepared for anything that comes your way. If applicable, figure out where your nerves are coming from — You might be dreading a certain topic (ie. a failure, a transition period), worrying about your appearance or body language, or even where to look. You can use different meditation and breathing techniques to ease your concerns before you go live. Practice and polish your response out loud over and over again until you feel satisfied with your answer.

Get yourself into the right mindset — No one gives a perfect interview. The secret to a successful media interview is to appear confident and comfortable. Go into the studio room, or wherever your interview is taking place, and familiarize yourself with it. We recommend you ask for a short-dry run to know where the cameras are and what places to look at when speaking.

• What are you wearing? If appearing live on television, you want to focus on your body language and appearance. Wear appropriate clothing. Wear what you would wear to work!
• What does your posture look like? Most likely, you’ll be seated. Be conscious of your posture for a more professional look. Sit up, don’t hunch your back, cross your legs, and fold your hands together comfortably. If you’re explaining something and need your hands to help guide your answer, you can lightly use them. If you’re worried about too much body distractions, you can practice sitting up straight or using your hands lightly when talking during your daily activities.

Delivering Your Live Media Interview

At this point, you already have an idea of who your interviewer is, you identified your audience, and you practiced responses to possible questions out loud. To retain your audience’s undivided attention during the interview,, keep your answers brief and to the point. Be concise in your answer so the dynamic of the interview is more conversational than formal based. Keep in mind the list of key points you planned on sharing to guide you through the interview. Moreover, you don’t want to overlap the reporters’ questions. This means you want to pause for a few seconds, then go about your response.

You can find a few tips below to help guide you through the interview part of the process.

• Eye contact with your reporter is essential. 
• Answer the question they are asking — don’t beat around the edges. 
• Be authentic — this means being able to be your true self, with honesty and openness. This is the key to successfully master an interview.

You want to end the interview with a memorable quote or a story that makes an impression on viewers. Before the interview, you can think of possible messages or key phrases to voice, capturing their attention and hopefully enabling them to resonate with who you are and what your purpose is. You can discuss with the interviewer in advance how they can quote you and reference your business. In exchange for your expertise and your time, it’s a fair exchange that the interview mentions your business and how to learn more about you and your services.

Ways to share your media content digitally:

Now that you have a published  interview on record, make the most of it! First, you can nicely voice to the reporter how you’d like to be quoted if they didn’t already email you a copy of the article. You want to be certain they correctly cite you after the quote too. This can be your name with your credentials or just your website. In addition, it’s also important that the interviewer established other correct details about you such as properly introducing and including a striking call to action (a piece demonstrating you and your business to prompt more sales and clients) that tells users what you want them to do. Of course you don’t want to tell your interviewer how to do their job, but the call to action should be BIG, so readers know that it’s important and to follow through with the action. Make sure that the CTA’s incorporate words such as like, share, or visit, using a link to your website.  

Use the interview to your advantage. Next, ask your interviewer to send the link once the feature article is published. You want to keep a tab on all of the work you have to showcase to your clients. However, more importantly you want to further promote your business by exercising this article to reach more clients and receive more positive WOM about your practice. 

Communicate your involvement with the reporter to family and friends. Share your article on social pages. Use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as social media platforms to publicize your work. You can even include your article in your monthly newsletters, weekly emails, or daily alerts! 

Below are some tips in sharing your featured article through different outlets:

Share on Twitter

• Tweet it, then look at the people who commented on it.
• Sharing inspiring quotes you said from the article.
• Tweet at certain hours — off hours, at night, or in the morning.
• Share your article link in your profile so it’s always easily accessible

Post on Facebook

• Ask friends, family, and/or coworkers to like, comment, and reshare it.
• Share it with your internal network
• GroupMe, Slack, or any other outlets you use to communicate with your coworkers.

Update your website

• Put it on your homepage, or an “About” section of your website.
• Mention it in other blog articles on your site — this also helps with SEO

Pro Tip: If you are struggling with creating content for your website, Healthie can even help you create educational content that actually resonates with your clients. To learn how to set up a free Starter account today, click here.

Send a promotional email

• Send an article as a newsletter to your clients or the people that has subscribed to you.
• A follow-up email to those people that hasn’t opened your first email about your article. 
• Subject lines — most important in capturing clients attention

Whatever you end up doing, your main goal is to make sure that your article is seen by as many people possible, then connect with these people and engage them in conversation.

Impact your audience and reporter in such a way that drives them to your services. It’s almost impossible to sum up your entire life and career in a single interview. The only way to frame a compelling presentation, is to illustrate it by taking them on a fun, captivating journey from start to finish. The most engaging speakers do a superb job of very quickly introducing a topic, explaining why they care so deeply about it, and convincing the audience members that they should care too. Most importantly, be confident and know your worth. Remember that the reporter and audience members are intrigued by YOU. All you can do now is get out there and give them your all!

If you’re truly looking to grow your wellness business, Healthie’s all-in-one practice management software can help through client retention strategies, facilitating partnerships and more. Click here to get started for free today!