Welcome to the new articles for the year 2013. If you are an inventor, author, speaker, filmmaker, consultant, personal coach, or if you just have a strong viewpoint on a particular topic, then you no doubt have considered trying to get interviewed by your local newspaper, radio or TV stations, or by websites, so that you can get your viewpoint out and so you can generate some sales and/or sales leads for your business. And while all the different media would certainly be welcome, you may not have the time or the energy required to do them all, or you might have found that some types of media are better suited to what you are doing than others are. We feel that radio interviews, on traditional AM or FM stations in the U.S. and Canada, are the single best place to put your time and energy. Thus we'd like you to focus on just radio interviews, and branch out from there based on results. Here are the reasons:

INSTANT FEEDBACK: Only the broadcast media can give you instant phone calls (either to the studio, or to your own number) or instant traffic to your site. And by "instant", I mean "this second", and not the next hour or day. This makes tracking much easier since you can tell immediately what show/station is pulling best for you. With print or websites, you may end up with several pieces circulating at once, so finding out which one is working (and which one is wasting your time) can be difficult. And since the results come in instantaneously, you can plan your day around it.

CAN BE DONE ON THE RUN: Since you probably are a person heavily involved in other areas besides media, stopping everything you are doing so that you can go through a one or two hour TV or print interview can be difficult, to say the least. And putting on makeup for TV or print may not be your cup of tea. Radio is the only medium that allows you instant feedback WHILE you are on the run (although, a cell is not the best for interviews... land lines are best); no stopping by a TV station, and no meeting with a print reporter.

THE MOST OUTLETS: In any city or town, there are more radio stations than TV stations and newspapers combined. This becomes very important once you have gotten good at doing your interviews, and you then want to make the best use of the approach you have developed. Also, once one of the media (say, radio) sees that you are doing a good job interviewing with them, others in that same medium will want to follow suit; thus you'll want to stick with the medium that has the most outlets for you to repeat the process. There are about 7,000 AM news/talk stations in the U.S. and Canada, most of which have talk programming; there about 7,000 music stations also, a surprising number of which also allow talk interviews, especially in the morning. These numbers do not include any non-broadcast (i.e., cable or internet) stations, because of the low (or no) listenership of these types of stations.

SEVERAL CAN BE DONE IN A ROW: Since there are so many radio stations, you can make good use of your time by scheduling as many phone interviews in one day as possible. Since you are live-on-the-air, stations have a vested interest in not wasting your time or theirs; you'll be off talking to the next station before you know it.

NO MAKEUP IN THE STUDIO: This applies to men also. Unless your topic or area of interest requires visuals (like maybe hair loss or juggling,) then you are going to love being able to do live-in-studio radio interviews without putting on makeup for the camera.

GOOD PRACTICE FOR YOUR OWN SHOW: This is one of the best reasons to stick with radio for your interview medium. Many folks do their interviews with the long-term goal of starting their own radio program. This is very feasible in radio; your own TV show, however, is going to be quite a stretch, and your own magazine or newspaper probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. A weekly half-hour radio show, or even a 2-minute special, is easily done even by beginners, and learning to syndicate it is a logical (albeit long term) next step.

YOUR PERSONALITY IS WHAT SELLS: This is perhaps the strongest reason for using AM or FM interviews: When people hear you give your story, they get emotionally involved. This is also why inventers, authors, speakers, filmmakers, personal coaches, and some consultants come across really well in radio interviews; because the one-on-one connection that listeners hear and feel. This connection does not require pictures or text, but it does require a "live" presence, meaning that the listener needs to know that you are there right now, speaking to him or her (live interviews are much more powerful than recorded ones.)

Next topic: Which Radio Stations to Choose?