I love interviews because when you get someone talking about something that they are really passionate about, their whole body language and voice changes, and it can be magical.
Interviews are great to break up the content on your social media and also to have a different voice reinforcing, or bringing a new perspective to something you’re already saying to your audience.
Bringing other people in to talk about their expertise on an area of interest to you and your audience can also be a great way to connect with them and their audience.
When you first start doing interviews it can be difficult to know what to ask, and especially how to ask the questions so that you get the best responses from your interviewee.
Here are my best interview tips for you to have more engaging conversations and more fun with your interviews.
1. Be present
If the person you’re interviewing can tell you’re distracted by your phone, your email, even things that are happening around you, you won’t get the best responses because they can tell that you’re not really that interested in what they have to say.
If they feel valued during the time they spend with you, you will receive valuable conversation from them.
We all crave undivided attention, so the more you engage with them in the form of eye contact, body language, the subtle ‘noddy’, the more comfortable and valued they will feel in your presence.
2. Ask open-ended questions
You can avoid the awkwardness of only receiving a yes or no response by changing the way that you frame your questions.
Instead of asking ‘do you think this will have an impact on your industry?’ You can ask, ‘how do you see this impacting your industry?’
Change; ‘have there been any changes over the last six months to the way that you operate?’ to; ‘what have the changes been over the last six months to the way that you operate?’
3. Don’t become married to your original line of questioning
Of course it is a great starting point to have a list of questions you want to talk through, but often the best interviews are the ones that flow and change with the responses of your interviewee.
You can ask them to expand on ideas, explain some technical points, or ask for examples to provide further clarification.
Interviews should be fun, and if you’re asking the questions that you are really interested in, then your audience is going to have fun listening to it too.
And you know what they say, the best interviewers are those who are the best listeners.
4. Be silent
It’s human nature to want to fill a void of silence.
If you want your interviewee to continue expanding on something, the easiest way is to continue your eye contact, continue looking engaged but remain silent.
Most of the time they’re gonna feel a subconscious pressure to keep on talking!
5. Be face to face
Have you ever noticed yourself leaning in to a conversation when the other person leans in? Or leaning back because they’ve leaned back?
Most often, our energy lifts when we can see the other person because we feel subconsciously compelled to ‘reflect’ body language cues. If you are feeding your interviewee positive body language cues they will feel more relaxed and excited about talking to you… and they might not even know why!
Even if it means doing the interview over Zoom or Skype, if the person you’re talking to can see your eye contact and body language you’re going to get much better responses than conducting the interview over the phone.
6. If you don’t know something, ask!
I think a lot of the time when we start doing interviews we’re worried that people might think we’re silly if it seems we don’t know all the answers already.
But that’s kind of the point of doing interviews; to learn new things!
Even if we do know the answer to a question, the person that we’re interviewing might have a different explanation or a fresh point of view.
Someone watching the interview probably doesn’t know the answer and would appreciate the question being asked. And, so will your interviewee.
7. Assume you have something to learn from every interview
Interviews are great for creating content, but they should also be fun. They should be a way for you to learn from and engage with the person you’re talking to.
If you are having fun and learning, your audience is going to have fun and learn something too.
I hope you find these tips helpful for your next interview… or maybe your first interview!
I would love to know if you have any interview tips of your own. Please leave a comment below about your interview experiences and what you have learnt in the process!