From Conversations to Content: DIY interview tips for aspiring writers and content creators.
Interviews are an underrated DIY tool for creating content. But there is a perception that interviews have to be these formal, super-polished events like what you see on 60 Minutes or hear on Fresh Air.
Asking questions.
In fact, you don’t need to have a press pass or a podcast to “do an interview”. You just need to be curious about a topic, write down a few of the questions you have about it, and start reaching out to people who you think can shed some light.
From Conversations to Content: My Interview Checklist
Turning your conversations into something of value to share with audiences does require some formalities and guidelines. Still, it’s more doable than you might think.
Here is the general process that I follow for my interviews.
Determine your purpose: What do you hope to learn from conducting this interview? What answers or insights are you hoping to find from the conversation?
Create a short list of interview subjects: Come up with 2–3 people to interview. The list should represent a range of diverse perspectives.
Draft your questions: Write down all of the questions or topics you’re curious about and narrow them down. Organize your questions from general to specific. The final list should be no more than 4–5 questions. Check out StoryCorps’ Great Questions.
Recruitment and outreach: Reach out to the people to request an interview. In some cases, you may want to work with a proxy with a working relationship to the interviewee, who can make the initial outreach.
Consider time/place: How are you going to conduct the interview? (Zoom, in-person, over email, Slack, Google Chat, WhatsApp, etc.
Practice: Go over the questions before the interview and think about the kinds of answers you’re hoping to extract.
Listen, record, and take notes: Active listening is a top priority, but ensure you have a process for capturing notes during the interview. Read about my six-step process for taking notes and turning them into great content.
Consolidate and prioritize key points: After the conversation, spend at least 10–15 minutes summarizing your notes into bullet points. This will help consolidate new insights and make connections to prior knowledge.
Transcribe: Use an AI-powered transcription tool to automatically turn the interview into text to start organizing, drafting, and editing.
Resources:
Great Sample Questions — StoryCorps
Developing Your Questions for Reader Focus Groups (Local News Lab)
Want To Know How To Ask Questions? Longtime Journalist Shows How It’s Done In New Book (WBUR)
Nine Simple Questions to Ask When Interviewing Somebody (Marketing Showrunners)
Talking to Customers is Not an Interview (Ari Zelmanow)
