Even if you are completely sold on the importance of having an active blog, it can still be tough to consistently produce top-quality blog posts. There are a lot of other moving parts in your business that require day-to-day attention and blogging is often seen as a non-urgent chore. After all, writing a blog post doesn’t pay the bills. Or does it? A consistently updated, quality blog does help pay the bills but you already know that. There may be other valid reasons why your business is unable to produce blog posts. Maybe you are truly too busy, maybe you are uncertain about how to write a blog post, maybe you don’t have access to strong writers or maybe you lack inspiration. Whatever the reason, neglecting to blog will amount to a failure to fully reach your ultimate business success.
This post will focus on one of the best ways to find blog inspiration and it is called interview based-blogging. Interview based content creation allows you to tap into industry expertise and this will provide you with the information you need to create helpful, informative content for your prospects. It’s also one of the more enjoyable forms of blog creation.
You get to gather your information via a conversation with an expert rather than trying to cobble together expert information on your own.
What is interview-based blogging?
In a perfect world, the experts in your business would write their own blog posts or you could solicit experts outside of your business to contribute to your blog. However, experts are busy doing other things and often don’t have the time or inclination to contribute to marketing strategy. So instead of asking experts to write, you can ask the experts if they would be willing to participate in a recorded interview. From this interview, a blog post can be created. The interview could be as short as 10 minutes or as long as agreed to.
How to Create Interview-based Content
An interview-based blog should start with some research. Make sure you know, in broad strokes, what the expert is going to talk about. The expert is unlikely to agree to a second interview or a followup phone call, if he or she feels that you haven’t done any homework prior to the interview. In addition, doing some research will allow you to ask interesting questions and follow-up clarifying questions.
Prior to the day of the interview create a list of questions you would like to ask. To the best of your ability keep the questions open ended. Also, ask the questions in an order that makes sense so that every answer can build upon previous answers. Start with broad questions on the most important topics first because these questions will form the foundation of the blog post. Over the course of the interview narrow the scope of your questions. The interview can be done in person, over the phone, or via teleconferencing. Remember: get answers to your questions but allow the expert some flexibility. They may direct the interview in a fantastic direction you hadn’t previously thought of. At the end of the interview, ask the expert if they have any further comments they would like to add. In addition, ask permission to make a follow up phone call to clarify any questions you might have while drafting the post.
Once the interview is over you can hand over the recording to your copywriters or start to create the outline of your post yourself. Your post can take one of two forms.
- It can be in the form of a Q & A
- You can take the answers and insert them into a narrative type of blog post in the form of quotes.
Editing is of critical importance. Poor grammar or spelling mistakes will quickly torpedo all of your efforts. It is often a good idea to have another set of eyes review your work. After the editing is done, voilà, you have created a valuable piece of expert content without demanding much from the expert.
Once your post is finished, you need to publish it on your blog and then take steps to disseminate it. We disseminate all of our own posts and our clients posts through social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. HubSpot makes content dissemination a breeze. The primary goal of disseminating your post is to attract engagement. The more likes, shares, and comments your post receives the better it will be for your authority and search engine rankings.
Why should you do interview-based blogging?
There are a number of reasons that some interview-based blog posts should be incorporated into your digital marketing content calendar. First and foremost, readers love this form of content and see it as incredibly authoritative. Secondly, expert information is likely to be helpful information and this format is great at capturing the experts voice and tone. These two reasons alone—authoritative and helpful—are enough to get started. However, there are other very important reasons. For example, this type of blog post introduces the marketing team to the nitty-gritty of your business which will help them direct and define further marketing efforts. It will help the marketing team understand the nuances and pain points in the industry and really get into the mindset of the prospects they are trying to nurture. The end result will also be richer due to the conversational quality of the information gathering.
Another great byproduct of this type of blog post is that it often inspires other types of content creation. All of a sudden, you might get ideas about logical follow-up blog posts. Or perhaps it might inspire a campaign, an ebook or a webinar. Once you get started, the benefits will become evident.
At Inbox Communications, we offer interview-based blogging services to our clients. Inbox Communications is a HubSpot partner. If you are interested in taking your inbound marketing to the next level, we would be happy to provide you with a free 30-minute consultation. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Give us a call.
Topics: Blogs
