Skype Can Ensure You Are Always Prepared to Meet the Media
When you’re packing a laptop for your next business trip, be sure it’s loaded with the latest essential public relations tool: Skype.
Video chats using Skype, an Internet phone system, are becoming the norm on television news shows. As media budgets shrink and newsrooms strive for an edgy look that appeals to a younger audience, journalists are increasingly relying on the low-cost (and often free) Skype to capture essential video from far-flung places.
News is only news if it’s timely, so be sure you are ready with Skype on your laptop in case an opportunity arises. That’s what Chuck Provini, chief executive of Natcore Technology of New Jersey, learned recently. Provini was in China to sign a deal for his small solar energy company when President Obama addressed the nation on the Gulf oil spill and the global alternative energy race. ABC’s World News Tonight was looking for sources to interview about the worldwide clean energy competition, and a reporter tracked down Provini in his hotel in China, requesting he do an interview over Skype. But there was one problem. Provini did not have Skype on his laptop and when he tried to download it, the instructions appeared in Chinese. In the end, a helpful businessman at the hotel loaned Provini a Skype-loaded laptop and the interview aired on the 6:30 p.m. national news.
The scramble was well worth it. Within two days of the broadcast, Provini got a call from the White House, where he has since met with a senior advisor to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and agreed to advise the Obama administration on ways to advance small business opportunities in the United States.
CNN is widely credited with conducting the first media interview using Skype in 2008. At the time, the sex scandal of then Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York was breaking news and the cable network’s legal expert was vacationing in Maui, far from a television studio where he would normally offer commentary. He used Skype to deliver an interview in which video and audio were high enough quality to be broadcast.
Since then, more and more television news shows are using Skype to replace the high cost of sending a camera crew to a remote location. At the same time, news shows that are striving to secure a foothold in social and new media to attract younger viewers gain a hipper, scrappier look by using seemingly unedited Skype interviews.
Aside from public relations purposes, Skype is also a handy business tool for travel emergencies. When the volcano in Iceland stranded business travelers for days on end, many small companies salvaged their meeting schedules and key negotiations by using Skype video conferencing.
You can’t beat the price of Skype. If you set up call forwarding on your Skype account, your business contacts at home can call a local number and contact you at no cost anywhere in the world. Skype is also available on smartphones.
For your next business trip, be sure your checklist is complete. In between “new business proposal” and “toothbrush,” include “Skype.” That way when a journalist contacts you in the middle of the night in Africa or the Middle East, you’ll be ready for the 15 minutes of fame that could dramatically impact the future of your business.
In her 16 years as a PR professional, Barbara Goldberg has helped clients in health care, alternative energy, and the performing arts tell their stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CBS News, ABCNews.com, and many other media outlets.
