Crafting Connection and Community Through Content
How interviews help shape my strategy in the Creator Economy
Interviews were the crème de la crème of content writing a decade ago. I have interviewed people from all walks of life and enjoy learning more about their personal stories through the written word.
Looking back, I remember a time when we only had Skype and people felt more comfortable answering questions via email rather than sitting in front of a webcam.
Nowadays, things are pretty different, and celebrities prefer to talk to you and provide video content as it is less time-consuming.
Therefore, if you want to chat with them, they will simply inform you about the available slots for a broadcast.
I have published interviews on blogs, webzines, magazines, newspapers, and various writing platforms. From my perspective, this new type of media views interviews as a secondary form of online content, as they tend to focus on first-person narration.
Disseminating content from interviews
I mainly focus on in-depth interviews and publish them in a single article. However, there are a variety of possibilities:
Multiple interviews: You can ask several people the same question and write an article about your findings and the different perspectives.
Short interviews: Ask one person an exciting question and then write a short-form article about the answer.
These are just a few examples, but a single interview can help you become more productive and thus increase your reach.
The role of interviews in a relational framework
Building a more relational type of media, in my view, should also encourage writing content at a more relational level.
Given the core strategies found in the blogosphere today, the concept of “relational media” seems to circumscribe what happens after a creator hits the publish button, not the actual content.
Today, writing on the internet seldom feels like a “Squid Game” type of scenario.
Everyone writes for themselves, and there is little room for developing a sense of community, as it sometimes feels more like we are all in a competition for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Interviews can also help build that sense of camaraderie between writers and, on the other hand, promote knowledge sharing in the blogosphere.
Moreover, they seem to be the ultimate form of relational content, as there are always at least two voices involved.
Concluding remarks
In mid-October, the community manager of one of these knowledge-sharing platforms asked me if I would be available for an interview in their Creators Spotlight feature.
Despite my busy schedule, I took the time to answer the questions because I want to share my experiences and support other creators, and at the same time, I want my readers to learn more about me and my journey.
Then last week, another platform opened a new community specifically designed to conduct interviews with celebrities and other authors.
Maybe this is the turning point, and we will see interviews have a more significant impact on the content writing field as policymakers take a more relational approach to media.
Check out Originality.AI., Jasper AI, Notion AI, or Undetectable.AI, and don’t miss out on special gifts and all the latest and most innovative tools for creators.
Thanks for reading this newsletter and supporting our creator community here on Substack. Please consider joining my journey across the blogosphere by picking up a thread from my content portfolio on Medium or Vocal. I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains affiliate links, so, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Your support is highly appreciated. Till next time, cheers. - Rui