MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Blog Interviews are Lame

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The “in” thing nowadays is blog interviews. You can surf the blogosphere and easily find a ton of bloggers doing it. Why? “Maybe’ because it’s a good way to boost your blog’s traffic.  Before, it seems that only reputable bloggers can do interviews with big people. But now it has become different as almost anyone can easily hold one. Not only that, these days you don’t need big people, you can interview random people and still look like you’re doing it finely.

My Rant with Interviews

Personally I’m not a fan of these interviews (although I got interview quite a many times). I find it as a lazy blogger’s way to sneak some traffic w/c will not really convert in the end. Either way here are the main reasons why I think its lame:

1. Lazy, Generic and Annoying Questions

There is nothing more annoying for me than to see generic questions get asked like “Tell something about your blog”, “What’s your advice for the readers here” and stuffs. While you cannot avoid asking the same questions with different people, it’s a completely different case when you just intentionally have a pre-made question for all your potential interviews.

Remember, each and every blogger has their own persona, different experience, expertise and tone. Don’t be lazy, ask questions accordingly!

2. Interviewing People that Don’t Add Value

The main purpose of an interview is for the interviewee to share something valuable to the readers of the interviewer’s blog. I don’t mean to be offensive but the hard fact is that you cannot just interview random people across the board and expect your audience to get interested in it.

It’s also important to stick your niche. If your blogging about blogging, you need to interview credible probloggers, not just any bloggers out there blogging on different niches.

3. Gullible Interviewees

Again you are going to disagree with this but I would just like to be honest. I find it absurd that these big people let these unknown bloggers interview them. Unknown bloggers are those who are just getting started, with 10m+ Alexa ranking and stuffs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying someone is not qualified to do an interview if he/she is just getting started. What I mean is that there must have some sort of credibility first before you can interview people. Just like in guest posting, you have to look first on the guest poster’s site before accepting the post if it’s good.

And as for the interviewees, I think it’s also important to think on whether accepting the interview can benefit other blogger’s audience (if there’s actually an audience) and benefit themselves as well. I don’t see the point of spending an hour answering questions when no one is really going to read it. I know you know what I mean.

Final Words

In doing interviews it’s essential to become creative and stand out from the rest. One person who does it fairly well is Michael Dunlop from IncomeDiary.com. The guy interviews people well and I myself enjoy all of his lengthy interviews with prominent people in the industry.

Just becoming different and not lazy can make a huge difference.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hahah right on the button! Exactly how I feel about interviews. Some blogs tend to pile up interviews and it just looks like they are saying “hey look at me, I get to talk to a famous person!” I’d much rather read a post like this than an interview of any kind, because people’s success stories are different and it doesn’t mean if I read someones interview and take his exact steps that I will have the same results. Thanks for the post.
    .-= Gordon´s last blog ..9 Life Saving Chrome Plug-ins For Bloggers =-.

  5. I’ve been looking into the idea of interviewing, but it’s not going to be typical questions like that although some of those may be in there. Your little rant has given me some ideas though. I definitely wanted my interviews to be different from the start but we’ll see what happens. Interesting post.
    .-= Christopher Anderson´s last blog ..The Go-Giver Review =-.

  7. As someone who has conducted 200+ interviews on radio, podcasts & print, I find the number one reason why an interview ends up sub-par is due to the *lack of research*.

    This is two-way though. The interviewer should do research on the subject and custom tailor questions & the direction of it specifically geared for the person being interviewed. In addition, the subject should *also* research the interviewer and get a sense of the type of audience that he/she will be exposed to – then custom tailor responses geared towards that demographic.

    If both parties can do just this to some extent, you’ll definitely get a great result with an interview worth reading, watching or listening to.
    .-= Jordan Cooper´s last blog ..Third Tribe Review Part 1 – Why Price Point Doesn’t Matter =-.

  8. You sure? Lets go through your three points:

    1. Lazy, Generic and Annoying Questions

    My interview is based on a standard questionnaire that you filled out. In other words, I “intentionally have a pre-made question for all your potential interviews”. You’re saying thats bad, but you’re happy to make an exception for your interview with me?

    2. Interviewing People that Don’t Add Value

    I’ve already interviewed a series of bloggers on my blog, including Darren Rowse. So what value do you add to the conversation? Am I making a mistake by publishing your interview if it doesn’t add anything new?

    3. Gullible Interviewees

    You mention Alexa rankings. Your Alexa ranking is better than mine. You also have more RSS subscribers. So what benefit for you is there by doing the interview with me? Between this and my generic interview questions shouldn’t you have turned me down?

    It seems like you have a valid point with your blog post but that you’ve buried it in some heavy criticism and negativity. Could you have made your point in a more positive, informative way?
    .-= Paul Cunningham´s last blog ..Your Own Successful Freelance Blogging Business =-.

  9. A lot of your titles make me crack up Melvin, keep them coming.

    Totally Agree with you on this article. I see some top internet marketing blogs that include at least one interview per week with some people I’ve never heard about and the thing is, they are usually really cocky and think they are all great. I’m always like who the heck is this, I’ve never heard of them.

    There tips and advice is usually like listening to the same old tune. Heard it before, next.
    .-= Mathew Day´s last blog ..Tweet Whistle Coupon Code 25% OFF =-.

  11. Yep I agree. but the goal of the interview with successful people is actually to provide inspiration to readers. What i don’t get is interviewing random people like what Murray Newlands does.

  12. You are right Paul and I couldn’t really deny what you’ve just mentioned.

    The truth is that if any single people in the blogosphere interviews me, I would GLADLY accommodate as much as I could. Sounds insidious and deceptive isn’t it?

    My take/rant in this issue lies more on the interviewer side rather than the one getting interviewed. let me further explain

    1.Generic Questions – for me having generic questions is plain being lazy. “Tell me about yourself” you dont tell that question to someone well known like problogger or shoemoney and stuffs, they have a dedicated page/post for that. I’ve talked with people about it and its hard to swallow information from someone that has been disclosed over ten times. Im not really saying be unique w/questions, what Im saying is don’t get lazy with interviewing.

    2. You sure Im not gonna add value? Hmmm. Well you have a valid point here. I became a bit critical thinking small people will not add value to an interview. However I am against people interviewing just about everyone who wants to get interviewed.

    3.Again it goes back to the no.1 thing, I more likely have a rant with interviewers, not much with interviewees. I could accept as much request as possible but could rant as much as I could on that matter as well. I know its unfair

    Im not really sure how I can point this post in other ways. the way posts written here is the way I am, I speak from heart, do stupid grammar and speling mistakes and stuffs so I don’t think I can do that.

    With my interview on your blog, its up to you. I would love to get interviewed but I strongly SUGGEST to follow what you feel is proper.

    (longest replied comment from me)

  15. I’ll just make two final points about “small people”.

    Firstly, I think it was Liz Strauss who said “Small bloggers grow up”. In other words, one day that small blogger you turned down for an interview could be on the A-List.

    The other point is that the size of someone’s audience is less important than the quality of it. I might choose to not interview people with less than 100 Twitter followers for example. But what if among those 100 Twitter followers is a book publisher who discovers my blog via the interview and offers me a book deal? I might have missed out on a golden opportunity.

    Anyway, thats all I think I can say on the subject without repeating myself.
    .-= Paul Cunningham´s last blog ..Your Own Successful Freelance Blogging Business =-.

  16. i love to see interview smashing mag style.. where they put together some great people in that particular area.. and ask some serious question.. so we can get view from different expert.

    I don’t mind who make the interview.. what important is the content.. sometime small blog have better interview compare to some ‘famous’ blog.. so alexa rank.. not give much different.
    .-= izzat aziz´s last blog ..How ‘debate’ could help your blog =-.

  18. When I read your first paragraph I just thinking about Michael(Dunlop) and at last I see his name at the end. Good to see his name, all his interview articles is a perfect example of how to take an interview. I personally reject to many interview request due to that common spreadsheet. I don’t know why they feel robotics? why they don’t want to be a human? Good to see you rise your voice.
    .-= Arafat Hossain Piyada´s last blog ..What will be Steve Jobs’ biography cover? Any Guess? =-.

  19. Hi Melvin,

    You have a point – those interviews are definitely being overdone ! But it’s an inevitable consequence of the low barriers to entry in the internet, that’s all, and shouldn’t take away from the fact that there are some excellent interviewers/interviewees out there. I’ve listened to a couple of Jordan’s (for example) and he definitely doesn’t just roll out lazy standard questions to whoever’s available.

    Anyway, definitely an interesting post – and one that will maybe ( hopefully soon!) lead to a website called “whataninterview.com” – full of great interviews – that I can feature on my own site ….

    Cheers

    Will
    .-= Will´s last blog ..wchingya.com =-.

  20. Funny you post this blog. I personally don’t agree with blog interviews being lame. I have interviews on my blog and I make sure to do some research on the person I’m interviewing and ask questions pertaining to each individual to make it more personal instead of generic and not special.
    .-= Arie Rich´s last blog ..Ash Cash – The Interview =-.

  21. When reading an interview, I always pay more attention on the way how to ask, not the one who is answering, that should be the real fun where it is

  22. I agree with everything Paul has said so far in this thread. People are still coming to me saying they found me through interviews I did *years* ago. If I had only picked super stars to be interviewed by it would look pretty silly now. Everyone starts somewhere, and what is wrong with sparing 5 – 10 minutes out of your day to answer some questions, silly or not? Yes I get asked the same things all the time but that means I tend to have answers already to give them 😉
    .-= Chris Garrett´s last blog ..Do you dare put down the mask? =-.

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