How To Obtain Guests and Interviews [Creator's Tip #62]

On this week's Creator's Tip, I wanna share with you guys some of the tips that I've learned
over the past couple of years about how to obtain guests
for interviews for your YouTube channels and for other
things. How do you get them to say yes and actually set a time to do those things and
all those things? I'm going to share with you some of that this
week on Creator's Tip. Hey, guys! My name is Tim Schmoyer, and welcome
to another week of Creator's Tip, where every week
we just help you guys who are making online video content know how to make that stuff
stand out the best on the web. And thank you guys for your
patience over the past couple of weeks as I've been out of
the country. It's great to be back, and I wanna kick off this week's Creator's Tip by
answering a question that a couple of you guys have asked me before.
You say, Tim, how do you get in touch with some of these more high level people on YouTube
and get them to agree to do interviews with you for
your channel? Especially that came up when we were
talking with Benny Luo from New Media Rockstars. And we've talked with Mystery Guitar Man.
We've done a lot of videos with Nalts, and how do
we get those? Being on both the end that is trying to get
people to come do interviews with us here at Reel SEO and having been on the receiving
end of people who have tried to get me to come do interviews
with them, I've learned a lot about this. I'm not an
expert, by any means, but I'll share with you guys 10 tips that I came up with that
might help you attain special guests and things for your YouTube
channel and the content you would like to make.
None of these are in any particular order. So starting with the first one, you have to
be knowledgeable about your guests. Why are they the perfect
person for you to contact to talk about whatever it is that
you want to talk with them about? Familiarize yourself as much as you can ahead of time
with this person. Be very knowledgeable about what message
they're trying to communicate and how they're doing that. If they're a blogger, be up to
date on the recent events that are happening in their life. If you
come across someone that doesn't really know the person that you're trying to interview
and you're just kind of looking for content in general, that's
not going to work. Why are they special and why do you
want to connect with them? And make sure that they feel like you already have a connection
with them. Number two, be very clear on what you'd like
to discuss with them, maybe even include a couple of
sample questions right there in your e-mail. Say, hey, I'd love to talk with you about
this because I've seen you say this and this, and I really agree
with that. And I'd love to hear you talk more about this
point or that point. Here's a couple of questions. And let's maybe have two or three of those,
not all the questions. The interview will probably flow
kind of naturally as you talk with them. But maybe a couple
to kind of get them started, like, oh, I see what direction they want to go in. It also
gives you a little bit of a foundation so that when there's that kind
of pause or break in the interview, you know exactly what
you're going to next. Number three, keep your correspondence very
brief and skimmable. I mean, you want to make it long
enough so that people feel like you're invested into this and that you know what you're talking
about as far as where they stand on certain issues
you want to talk about, but don't make it so long that it's
gonna just long sentences, like one after the other, just text, text, text, text. Make
it skimmable. Number four, just don't make it open ended,
like, hey! Would you like to do an interview sometime?
Suggest something, probably like about a week out. Don't put it too far off that they'll
forget it, but don't make it like tomorrow either. Maybe
about a week out works well. Suggest maybe two or three
dates and that could work well for you to conduct an interview and if any of those times
would work well.
Number five, if you have some other interviews that you've done in the past, maybe include
a link to one or two of those in your e-mail so they
can kind of get an idea of what your style of interview looks
like and how it goes, and just so they have a little bit more of an idea of what to expect.
Number six, always close out your e-mail asking them to respond either way. Like, even if
they can't do it, just like a yes or no. Just ask very politely
if they would do that for you. Most of the time people do.
Number seven, if you haven't heard back from them after a few days, feel free to e-mail
them again or contact, whether you're tweeting each other
or or whatever the platform might be, reinitiate the
contact with them a couple of days later if you haven't heard back, just saying hey. I'm
still interested in doing this. Would love to know if you got
my previous message and if this is something we could work
out or not. Often times it's not like they're purposely ignoring you, it's just kind of
like it got pushed on a backburner. So just kind of remind them that
you're still there. Bring it off the backburner. A lot of
times, like, when they see that initiative, you know, people are more likely to respond
the second time as well.
Number eight, and this is really important, never discount yourself or make excuses for
like, oh, I know my audience is small, but you know. Or I'm
not good at interviews. I haven't done one. You know, just
don't discount yourself at all. That's a major red flag. As soon as I see someone do that,
, I just am like, don't worry about it. I'm not doing that interview.
Be confident about yourself and say I would really like
to do this because. And if you have a small audience and you don't really have much value
that you feel like you can pitch to them, just don't say
anything at all. Just don't discount yourself or make excuses for
anything. Number nine, make the interview as easy as
possible for them by knowing your equipment and your
technological set up ahead of time. Don't try to figure it out while you're getting
ready for the interview, like they're on the phone waiting or you're
just getting on Skype trying to figure out your software for
the first time or figure out your cameras. Number ten, just go do it! I know it can be
a little intimidating sometimes to contact big star celebrity
YouTubers, or send them an e-mail, or contact them on Facebook or Twitter or whatever the
case may be, but I think a lot of these people probably
aren't inundated with as much e-mail as a lot of us might
think they are. So, just initiate. What's the worst that could happen? They say no.
You never hear back in the first place. Sometimes you might run into
them at like Vid Con or another conference somewhere,
and they're like oh yeah! I remember you! I remember you e-mailed. Sorry I didn't get
back to you. And sometimes that's true, and then just having
that prior connection ahead of time, they'll be like, oh, let's
do the interview now instead, and you can do that in person. So there's other benefits,
even if you don't hear back. Just try it and see what happens.
And guys, I would love to hear from you. What are some tips that you guys have learned from
the past of doing your own interviews and getting people
to be a guest on your show and obtaining those and
scheduling that? And even if you're maybe on the receiving end and people are trying
to get interviews with you, what tips and ideas do you have
that you could share with the rest of us? Comments below,
please, or video responses would be even more awesomer. I would love to see you guys and
hear from you. So make sure you leave those below. And
thanks for hanging out with us, guys. Make sure you
check us out at ReelSEO.com for awesome stuff we're posting
like this all the time, all throughout the week, just to help
you guys out with your video content. And I will see you guys on Tuesday for a look
at the Reel Web, and then again next week for another Creator's
Tip video. So make sure you subscribe to get those. And
I will see you guys then. Thanks for hanging out! Bye.