Top tips for telling your story

Our 2020 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award State/Territory Winners and Finalists came together for the second workshop of the 2020 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award Capacity Building Program; a program that was implemented to add value to the experience of the women involved in the 2020 Awards due to the current situation with COVID-19. The second workshop in the series was focussed on media and pitching training.

AgriFutures Australia’s Brooke Croft, Manager, Capacity Building said the meeting was part of a new virtual capacity building program for the 2020 Rural Women’s Award State/Territory Winners and Finalists.

“We are working closely with all of the women involved in the 2020 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award cohort to roll out an engagement, media and capacity building program course for the coming months so that their projects can continue to flourish, even during the current situation with COVID-19,” said Ms Croft.

The media training element of the session was delivered by Melissa Hoyer, Journalist and Editor and Large, News.com.au, who sat in her brightly-coloured home office and presented her ideas and top tips for engaging with media to share the exciting projects being led by our State/Territory Winners and Finalists.

Melissa focussed on the expert knowledge in the group and their expertise in everything from mental health, soil health, insect farming, psychology and research science.

“Your knowledge is extraordinary, and people can learn a lot from you,” said Melissa.

Melissa’s top tips for dealing with the media are as follows:

• Know your subject
• Be prepared
• Be proactive and actively seek out the journalists you want to speak with by emailing or phoning them and let them know what your area of expertise is
• Don’t be afraid to use social media but be aware it can take up a lot of time
• Voice your opinion on social media if that’s your area of expertise because it will reach a lot of people
• Don’t take private phone calls before an interview as this could distract you
• If you’re concerned about something you’ve said during an interview, ask to see/review it before its published
• If you’re asked about something that is not in your field of expertise, you don’t have to answer it and you can say you’ll leave that for others to comment on
• If you’re asked to do an interview and you’re a bit nervous, you can always ask if it can be pre-recorded rather than live
• And enjoy the experience as you have expert knowledge the rest of us want to hear about.