Powerful Communication Podcast

Media Training And The Truth

Colin Kelly with reaction following the former Principal of Dundee University's appearance at the Scottish Parliament's Education Commitee.

Dealing with nerves while presenting

It's perfectly natural to feel excited or a bit scared when you're about to speak in public. Whether it's a big audience at a conference, a small group at work or that strange sensation that comes with Teams and Zoom, being in the spotlight can feel strange. Sometimes, this manifests in physical ways. You might perspire. Feel shaky. Or suddenly acquite a washing machine on the spin cycle in your stomach. In this short episode of Comsteria's Powerful Communication podcast, Colin Kelly shares some...

Be Visible - It's No Longer A Choice For Leaders

The days of 'leaders' or any senior figure in an organisation 'flying under the radar' are over. You need to let people in, give them the chance to get to know you, and above all, spend time listening to them. This cultivates goodwill and gives you the benefit of the doubt when the heat's on. I think some senior figures in organisations shy away from media engagement and speaking in public because deep down inside they believe themselves to be arrogrant, elitist and out of touch. If that's you -...

A story with a powerful hook

When you give an interview to the media, you can get powerful results by using a key statistic as a 'hook'. Journalists are trained to look for these as they can make stories more engaging and give them a sense of urgency. There's a great example today in the story from Police Scotland about how easy it is for online paedophiles to make contact with childen 'within 30 seconds' of trying. The use of that tangible number stops the audience in its tracks, gives the whole story a new dimension that ...

Kill The Jargon - How To Make Every Word Count

Here's a clip from a recent writing workshop delivered by Comsteria's Colin Kelly. We love to tackle corporate jargon whenever we encounter it. The trick is always to focus on your audience and challenge any words or phrases that they wouldn't use in every day speech. There are lots of redudndant, empty phrases uses on websites, social media and in interviews where the writer or speaker - for whatever reason - uses a jargon phrase instead of what they really want to say. Here's some advice on wh...

How to brief a spokesperson before a media interview

I've seen a lot of business leaders end up overwhelmed because the comms colleague briefing them before their media interview gives them far too much information. This is often done with good intentions (better to include too much than risk missing out something important) but it can have negative consequences because the interviewee can't possibly remember everything. In this episode of Comsteria's Powerful Communication podcast, our media trainer Colin Kelly shares some advice on how comms pro...

The QCARDS system for evaluating AI tools

Comsteria's Colin Kelly outlines his QCARDS system for evaluating AI tools. If you are thinking of using a particular AI software within your marketing, comms or PR role, consider evaluating each tool against the following criteria: Q - Quality. Can the tool do the job to a higher standard than I can? C - Cost. How much does it cost? Explore the limits and potential savings by, perhaps paying annually or accessing the tool via the API. A - Access. Does this tool enable people who might lack part...

How to find an audience for your podcast

We're often asked to give advice to clients interested in starting their own podcast. In this episode, Colin Kelly shares some thoughts around what it takes to find an audience for your podcast and how to make it stand out. He also looks at the emerging trend for location or topic based email newsletters, such as the Edinbnurgh Minute on Substack. Might it be possible that the publishers of these newsletters might be interested in using some of your podcast content? So rather than building an au...

Is Pinterest really going to knock out Google? How to make sense of surveys

Your sceptical friend, Colin Kelly, suggests remaining cautious when surveys seem to throw your current approach to digital marketing up in the air. What's really going on and who should you trust? What should you do? Help is at hand!

You won't get engagement if you're never vulnerable

Comms Is Not The Employer

Unlimited Inventory Is Killing Corporate Comms

00:00:00:09 - 00:00:41:00 Speaker 1 Unlimited inventory is the scourge of powerful communication. Let me say that again. Unlimited inventory is the scourge of powerful communication. You know, it's not PowerPoint that causes death by PowerPoint. There's no problem with PowerPoint. The issue with PowerPoint is you can always add another slight. The problem with your website is we can always add another page. If you're using AI, if you're writing in Microsoft Word, whatever you're doing, you can j...

The Trouble With Churn and Burn

Understanding User Needs

Social media channels are not distribution platforms

The danger when you only look at figures

Leverage the physical world to stand out online

Advertising Advice

Almost every business will advertise at some point in its existence. I realised we have hardly mentioned advertising on this channel and I wanted to share 2 quick bits of advice today. For more on every aspect of #powerfulcommunication visit Comsteria. From video production and podcasts, to media training, presentation skills and crisis comms our training helps businesses like yours every day.

How charities and community groups can get paid

An embarassing encounter at the supermarket reminded me to tell you about this.

Local newspapers and the local democracy reporting service

Here's a deep dive inside local newspapers and in particular the work of the local democracy reporting service. In this episode, Colin Kelly explores page by page, today's Paisley Daily Express explaining where the stories come from, how the newspaper comes together and its relationship with other titles in its group. Find out more about the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Media training courses from Comsteria. Local news is still alive and it matters....

Recognising and celebrating great work

It's amazing how many communications teams do neither. Work with me and we can change that in 2025. www.comsteria.co.uk

Nail the basics of powerful communication

Rule Number 1 - assume everything you say is being recorded. You might know this already. I bet there's someone working near you who's forgotten and could put your business at risk in 2025. Share this and remind them. https://www.comsteria.co.uk

The Trouble With Demographic Cohorts

We need to realise that demographic cohorts (Baby Boomers / Generation X etc) are lazy marketing constructs with no more value than horoscopes. I'd urge communications professionals to stop referring to these and to resist the urge to label and divide particular generations. It simply doesn't follow that someone born in 1975 is automatically more likely to exhibit particular behaviours, attitudes or cultural preferences than someone born in 2001 simply because of the generation they belong to. R...

Thinking about business objectives

If you deliver training and consultancy and ask clients 'what are your business objectives?', you might not be getting the full picture. At Comsteria, we probe a little deeper! LIsten to this episode and find out how we do it. www.comsteria.co.uk

How words can make e-cigs seem less harmful and climate change more scary

The truth about unnamed 'sources'

Unnamed sources have an important role to play when it comes to exposing wrongdoing, whistleblowing and corruption. But they've become overused in much of our media and run rampant online with no controls or accountability. Worse, they give rise to the myth that there's a secret elite of connected 'insiders' that know more than you and me. It's time we called out this nonsense and made sure unnamed sources and people who quote them are held to a higher standard.

Should I Get Verified On Linkedin? And What Actually Happens?

Comsteria's Colin Kelly delivers Linkedin traning and is getting asked this question A LOT! Here's a quick explainer. Visit Comsteria online and find out more about our training and consultancy work, all designed to help you communicate with power! www.comsteria.co.uk

Trump Wins Election USA. But how?!

It's time the poltical podcast chataratti realised just how out of touch they are.

What makes media training from Comsteria different?

We've got several important advantages over our competitors. Obviously, we've youth on our side. Training and consultancy is a full time business for us - we're not doing this on the side while working for someone else or enjoying a semi retirement. We live and breathe this every single day. And our knowledge of the media is based on how it is now, not how things were 25 years ago. And as Colin Kelly explains in this episode of the Powerful Communication podcast, our priority is building you up ...

Media training tip - build your media intelligence

Here's a simple step you can take to improve your understanding of the media, which in turn will increase your confidence, hek you get over some fear of the unknown and should also highlight opportunities you can take advantage of. If you're part of a comms team, you could all get involved in this and share the workload.