Top 10 Tips for Conducting an Exceptional Interview - 2023 UPDATED!

In this blog post, I share my top 10 tips for conducting an outstanding interview for your podcast, YouTube channel, and website. You will learn:

Ready for your interview preparation? Let's go.

One of the best ways to create content online is to interview someone - someone who complements you and your brand, or fills in the gaps.

But conducting interviews (especially audio or video interviews) is not easy. (At least the good ones are worth people's time.)

While most content is generated by the person you're interviewing, the responsibility of shaping an interview that's worth the pain of being consumed still rests in your hands - and it's not just about asking the right questions, either.

It's about genuine interest, the flow, the mood, sincerity, concern, dig deeper, define vagueness, attract stories, avoid awkwardness…and be aware of it all at the same time.

< p>After doing hundreds of interviews on the SPI podcast and on my YouTube channel, and being interviewed on many podcasts and YouTube channels, I learned a lot about what it takes to conduct an interview worth listening to - a gripping, content-packed interview your audience wants to hear.

It's hard to choose, but here are some of my favorite interviews:

And that's not to mention the warm, fun, and insightful interviews you can hear in the backlog of The Community Experience, a show we discontinued in 2022. Here are some standout episodes :

Two words: your audience.

While interviewing can help you and your brand, it can also help the person you're interviewing (by giving them exposure to your audience), your number one priority should be to enlighten your audience - to get meaningful answers from the person you are interviewing.

Your audience will appreciate it greatly, and serve your audience is a gesture of appreciation. Trust me.

P.S. I share some additional tips before the interview, including having a notebook with you and avoiding too much preparation in SPI TV Episode 50:

8. Prepare a list of flexible and open-ended interview questions and possible follow-up questions

You should prepare a list of questions that will serve as a model for the interview - a guide for the path you want to follow from start to finish.

But not a shopping list that you should stick to 100%.

For each question, you should come up with two or three possible follow-up questions that might be appropriate to ask, depending on the answer. You probably won't discover them all, but because they're there, it's a good reminder in case the perfect opportunity arises to dig deeper into a topic of interest.

As for the questions themselves, here are some ground rules:

Do not ask YES or NO questions. Do not ask more than one question at a time. Keep them relevant, but be creative. Phrase questions in a way that allows the interviewee to develop. Offer to show the questions to the person you are interviewing to make sure they are comfortable with them, which goes hand in hand with . . . 7. Provide a welcoming environment for the interview

In order to get the best responses from the people you interview, you need to create a welcoming environment for them.

A comfortable person, who feels like they are just chatting with a friend, will be more likely to give more solid information in a more enthusiastic and friendly tone, which benefits everyone.

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Here are some ways to create a comfortable environment for the person you are interviewing:

Let them know before they even start recording that it's really just a conversation about two people connecting. Make sure they know all the interview details ahead of time. Ask them if they would like to see the questions first. Thank them for the interview before you even start and introduce them to your audience. Be enthusiastic! 6. Allow the person you are interviewing to speak

One of the worst things you can do as an interviewer is to do the interview yourself. You need to give the person you are interviewing a chance to communicate as much as possible without interruption. The more they talk, the better.