Today’s guest post is by Unmana Datta.
I’ve always felt interview-style blog posts are a great way to create content for a business site.
But I’d only taken advantage of them in an ad hoc way until a few months ago, when I started a regular interview series on my business blog.
Based on my experience, I wanted to share with you the top six reasons – and benefits – to starting your own series of interview-style posts.
Six Benefits of Interview-style Blog Posts
1. Getting relevant content easily
For a blogger, content you don’t have to write yourself is such an attractive proposition!
By interviewing a marketing expert or entrepreneur I admire, I get great, relevant content on marketing and entrepreneurship.
Wait – easy is relative. What with asking people for interviews, sending them questions, editing the interview, it is a bit of work. If it’s a video interview, you have to prepare, have the actual interview (and even go to meet the person you’re interviewing), and maybe edit (which I haven’t done), or transcribe (which I did, and takes longer than you’d think!).
So let me put it this way – it’s a different way of getting relevant content than writing it yourself.
2. Repurposing content
You can use content from interviews to create more posts. For example, I ask each person I interview to name their favorite marketing blogs. Then I can round up the answers and write a new post. If you interview florists, for example, and one of the questions you ask is about how to get cut roses to last longer, you can create a whole new post with tips for making roses last from florists.
3. Learning from others’ experiences
When I interview people about being an entrepreneur, the answers were invaluable. Gini Dietrich herself scared me with her caution about cash. Sally McGraw inspired me with, “Overnight success is probably the exception, not the rule.” I have learned so much from each person I’ve interviewed, and my readers gained information I couldn’t have shared with them!
This is especially relevant if you’re managing a blog in an industry where you don’t have experience. In my last job, I started and managed the blog, but I wasn’t a business expert. So I interviewed other employees or clients to get the kind of content I needed.
4. Building relationships
Okay, this is a little sneaky. But I’m a big fan of everyone I’ve interviewed, and I wouldn’t have dared to approach Rand Fishkin or Anita Campbell to say “Hey, you’re so cool! Can I talk to you?” But – while it’s more or less the same thing – it seems more acceptable to ask if I can interview them for my blog and then ask them what makes them so cool. I’m amazed at the wonderful people I’ve been able to “meet” because of this.
5. Reaching new audiences
Usually the person you interview will share the interview with their networks. I wouldn’t count on this, but it’s a nice bonus when it happens.
6. Search Engine Optimization
If number five happens, you get good backlinks as well! But even apart from that, if you ask relevant questions and get good answers, you have keyword-rich content.
Pro Tips
Before you start, lay down some ground rules:
- Who are you going to interview? What are the criteria for someone to get interviewed on your blog? I look for marketing or content stories – someone who’s built a business from a blog, or a marketing expert I admire, or a reputed entrepreneur in the marketing industry.
- What will you talk about? I change the questions a bit for each person, but overall, I want to learn how the person I’m interviewing made it, what challenges they faced, and how they approach marketing. Because I’m interested in social media, marketing metrics, and productivity tools, I’ll also ask about that. But it all ties into the overall theme of marketing and entrepreneurship, because our audience is small-business and startup owners.
- How often will you do this? If you can have a fixed schedule, that’s great. But decide on how often you want to do this ideally, and it might take you a few tries to figure out how often you can do this (based on the time you need to spend, how long it takes for people to respond, and so on). What should be the mix of interview posts with other content on your blog?
One last tip: Ask interesting questions. You can define interesting any way you like (I defined it as interesting to me, and embarked on it as a totally self-indulgent exercise!). Just don’t ask the same questions as everyone else, the same questions some of these people might have answered a dozen times already. Give it your own spin (pun intended!)
Unmana Datta works with small businesses to help them improve their marketing. She writes about marketing on the Better Marketing blog.