Michael Stelzner on Building a Blogging Business Through Interviewing Others

In today’s lesson, I want to talk about how to build a business around creating content that is based upon interviewing other people.

To help me do that, I have invited my agb directory  friend Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner and Social Media Marketing World onto the show because he’s someone who I’ve seen build an amazing business relatively quickly in the social media space. In the early days of that business, he did it simply by interviewing others.

I first met Mike at a blogging and social media conference, in 2009, where he interviewed me and quite a few other speakers at that conference.

In 2009, Mike was brand new to the updated 2024 mobile phone number data scene. I’d never met or heard of him. As we discover in the interview that follows, he had little to no experience in social media at that point. However, within a year or so his blog – Social Media Examiner – was one of the go-to blogs on the topic, and today his event ‘Social Media Marketing World’ is one of the go to events on the planet. He’s built an incredibly successful business around Social Media.

Listen to this podcast above in the player or here on iTunes.

In this interview, we take a step back in time to 2009, and I ask Mike about that first conference. I ask him:

• Why he took the approach he did,
• How he got so many influencers and speakers to agree to be interviewed by him as an unknown and the benefits of doing those interviews.
• We then talk about Mike’s tips for preparing to interview influencers
• How to conduct yourself during the interviews
• And what he does after the interview to grow the relationship further

Lastly:

• We talk about some of the new ways of doing interviews today. Mike did most of them in person face to face in the early days but today with podcasting, live video and other technologies there are some amazing opportunities.
• He gives some tips on choosing which medium to use
• How to monetize this type of content
• And shares some tools that can be really useful – particularly if you’re looking to do live video

This interview sparked numerous ideas for me, as we spoke, and I’m confident whether you’re just starting out or are a more experienced blogger that you’ll come away with some great ideas and practical takeaways too!

Further Resources on How to Build a Blogging Business Through Interviewing Others

• Social Media Examiner
• Social Media Marketing World
• Huzza