5 Tips for Better Blog Interviews from tara gentile on Vimeo.

Interviews make for great blog fodder, provided your interviews are great.

But because interviews are an easy way to get other people to create content for your site, it’s easy to be lazy. Instead of taking the time to get creative & craft an interview that serves your readers as well as your subject, you can fall back on the “usual questions.”

The usual questions are boring.

Having Twittered about crafting creative blog interviews, Dyana Valentine – who helps self-starters self-finish – volunteered to share her criteria for a great blog interview in a short video with me. I had a blast talking to Dyana who has a glowing, larger than life personality in addition to being fiercely intelligent.

The video is only 5 minutes long so I encourage you to watch but here is the Cliffs Notes version:

  • Creative blog interviews offer something fun.
  • Creative blog interviews discover something new.
  • Creative blog interviews take advantage of a live component: audio, video, or chat.
  • Creative blog interviews have context, answer a larger question.
  • Creative blog interviews are brief.

How can you incorporate a creative interview into your blog content?