How to Interview A Subject Matter Expert (SME) In The Most Efficient Way To Get The Best Content
Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs, are some of the great ways to gather credible information for your audience. Businesses and pages have begun to include material by SMEs and have seen great results with their audience. The thing is, people, like to engage with humanized content; it makes things more relatable.
What is a Subject Matter Expert (SME)?
Subject Matter Experts are professionals who are very knowledgeable about specific skills, technology, niches, and businesses. Businesses are now eschewing the idea of consultants and onboarding SMEs to create content with high conversion rates. In short, an SME is super beneficial for your business; here are a few reasons why:
- Create Trustability
An SME is an authority in its niche. Therefore, providing your target audience with this knowledge sets you apart from the competition as your page becomes an authority on the matter. - Curate Reliable Content
SMEs have a world of information to share. The content you extract can streamline your post schedule. As a result, you have a more efficient content publishing strategy. - Improve EAT Score
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT) is a crucial Google algorithm that ranks your content. In short, SMEs based content will help you up your EAT score in search engines.
Once you have an SME on board, the next step is ensuring the conversation is content dense and informative. Read on to see how you can interview an SME in the best way to collect a barrage of information.
Efficiently Extract the Best Content from Subject Matter Expert Interviews
Subject Matter Experts don’t really have a lot of time. Hence, once you have them in your office, it’s best to have a strategy in place to get the most out of it. Here are some great tips to ensure you have everything to gather lucrative information.
Know What You’re Looking For
Picking an SME means knowing what you want. Before you pick your SME and schedule an interview, ask yourself the following questions:
- What’s your budget?
- What’s your timeline for content creation?
- Are they well-versed in what you want to explore?
- Are they relatable to your target audience?
- What does their professional journey look like?
Once you have this sorted, you’re ready for the interview.
Planning Ahead
Getting quality content from an interview means planning well for it. Here’s an idea of what you should prepare for:
- The type of interview
It could be in-person, over Zoom, formal or informal. Take your pick. Usually, informal interviews result in an organic and fruitful conversation. - The interview location
If you’re using Zoom, ensure you have a steady internet connection and a charged device. Alternatively, if you’re meeting in person, dress according to where you’ll be meeting and pick a place where both parties can have a smooth conversation. - The list of essential questions
It’s essential to carry a list of the crucial questions and exploratory topics you want the SME to answer. This helps contain the interview and lets you get the most from their experience. - Budget for time
An organic interview is a great way to get the conversation going. It’s only natural when two people begin talking about a topic they both are passionate about, so budget time for off-topic conversation. - Prepare the equipment needed for the interview
Ensure you have your recording devices, cameras, lighting equipment, computers, headsets, microphones, and whatever else you need ready for the interview. This makes for high-quality video content to use at a later date.
Have a Conversation BeforeHand
A great way to prepare for the interview is to get in touch with the Subject Matter Expert and share your goals and expected outcomes of the interview. That may entail sharing a list of topics or questions you want them to discuss or explore.
It’s also a great way to build rapport before you sit down and start recording. This helps to streamline the meeting and offers both parties a framework so that no surprises can offset the conversation.
Use The Art of Questioning
One of the best ways to “extract” great information is to use the art of questioning. A good interview uses the following techniques to guide the conversation intelligently:
- Open Ended Questions
These leave room for exploration, opinions, and explanations. In short, it invites a deep exploration of the topic at hand. - Connecting Questions
This helps to guide the flow of conversation. In addition, such questions invite introspection and allow SMEs to share information organically. - Circling Back
A great way to come full circle is to bring up previous questions. Then, throughout the conversation, answers may change to questions that have been asked previously, which is interesting to explore. - Clarifying Questions
An SME is an expert in their niche, which means jargon and specific terms come naturally to them. Ask questions for clarification and explanation; it creates avenues to delve deeper into the topic.
Extracting the Information
Once your interview is done, you can play back the recording and transcribe it with the help of AI programs or a robust team of transcribers. Once you have the interview content, you can curate different pieces of content using the extracted material.
Whether it’s visual, audio, or written, you have voluminous information to pick and choose from once the information has been transcribed.
Conclusion
In short, an interview with a Subject Matter Expert is a great way to grow your channel, business, or page. Not only will it bump your rankings, but you’ll also have a rich source to create pieces of content for some time. For example, you can extract video clips from the interview, snippets of conversation on specific topics, or even divide the interview into the many topics you discussed.
Your options are unlimited once you have extracted information from your Subject Matter Expert interview. So go on and level up your content strategy today.