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Using Q&As to create great content
Hey hey,
How’s it going on at your end?
IT’S REALLY GETTING COLD HERE. Waking up to 14 degrees temperatures has become the norm.
My Canadian friends keep on parroting, “oh it isn’t cold yet.”
Dude, my AC unit back at Naija never really went past 18 degrees.
My basement always feels like Elsa was singing in there the night before when I go down to work every morning.
But let’s get back to why you opened today’s email 😊
How to use Q&As to create amazing content
It’s a content-stuffed world. And creating content without sprinkling in some sort of insights or expert authority is 👎🏾
Yes, you’ll rank on Google for some of your keywords. But your audience—especially if you cater to SMEs—will read your content and see through the mirage immediately.
Mirage content usually happens because:
- The writer doesn’t have enough real-world experience to write in-depth content about a topic.
One way to avoid this is to interview a subject matter expert (SME) and turn that into a blog post or any other content format that works for your audience.
Here’s one thing…
Your SME’s authority and insights MUST be relevant to your audience…Or the content might fall flat on its face.
Here are some tips for making the best out of your Q&A sessions:
Prepare: Make sure you are briefed on the person you’ll be interviewing. Mine for background information from external and internal sources.
Prep your guest: Send questions beforehand, or talk through the angle of the interview with your interviewee before you meet. (For example, before last Saturday’s knowledge session with Ross Simmonds, I sent likely questions over. We then chatted over a Zoom call to discuss the angle and key takeaways for the audience). This ensures they are properly prepared and bring relevant examples, statistics, case studies into the conversation.
Use open questions: Use “why”, “how”, and “what” questions. These sorts of questions draw out the broad themes of a topic. If you need to focus them on a specific topic, use questions such as “tell me about this…” or “how did you approach that…”
Examples, examples, examples: Always ask your guest to support their arguments with real-life examples or analogies. If they have stories of when they applied their idea to a real-life issue, even better.
Listen: It’s easy to get so fixated on the brief, that you miss some of the nuggets that could lead to interesting insights. Listen carefully even if it seems your SME is going off brief. If it’s information that sounds interesting or new, build on that and dig deeper with open-ended questions.
Always flesh out: Remember this is all for your audience. So, always ask your guest to go deeper. The goal is to add more interesting information or insights to what already exists.
Capisce?
Content tools
A content tool I discovered this week
Soovle is a keyword discovery tool that aggregates keywords from Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Bing, and Answers.com. It’s a smooth way to see how people are searching for your keywords on other platforms asides from Google.
Not Enough Writers
Last weekend’s session with Ross was 🔥
You can see our key takeaways here.
I would love to hear yours too.
And if you have someone who’s looking to join a kindred group of African content writers, here’s the registration link to Not Enough Writers.
Content writing jobs (Remote/Freelance)
And here’s a Google Docs link that also includes high-paying pitching opportunities
All the best folks. Please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this useful. 🙏🏾
My biggest takeaway this week 🚀
The person you’ll be in 5 years largely depends on:
Foods you eat
Books you read
Habits you adopt
People you spend time with
Invest in yourself!
What I’m thinking about?
You don’t need anyone’s approval. Just be YOU.
What’s your biggest content marketing challenge?
Reply to this email. Let me know what you’d like me to cover next.
I read every reply.
Plus, if you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Stay safe and sane.
I’ll be back on 9/17.
Dozie
P.S: If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it on LinkedIn or with a friend! If this was sent to you by a friend, get the next email by signing up here.
