techne-eikon.com

Through a series of events and circumstances that I am not going to pretend to understand, I was contacted by Rena requesting an interview with moi… she specifically wanted to interview me about my experiences and involvement with Blogcatalog. I found this rather curious,as I am not what you might call a BC power user. In fact, though I had signed up sometime last year, I had only really started to be active on the site a couple of weeks prior to her request… But who am I to turn down a chance to talk to people? And so I emailed her and said that I would be happy to do the interview.

As it happens, Rena had been contracted to write a guide to BlogCatalog for members of Jack Humphrey’s Social Power Linking – Web 2.0 marketing and Strategies program. In other words, my name, with links to my blogs, would be going out to several thousand people, just for answering a few questions in an email. Questions about something that I am no expert in, I might add. All of a sudden I was really happy to do the interview! Puzzled, but happy.

The report/guide will be going out to the Social Power Linking members in a day or two, but the whole experience really turned me on to the whole concept of giving interviews as a way of getting my name and blog out there in front of a wider audience. As for the “not an expert” thing? She was actually looking for someone to interview who was specifically not a power user. She wanted someone who could tell the story from a beginners point of view, because the SPL members would be mostly beginners to BC. I certainly could do that!

Now the obvious reasons for giving interviews are all about exposure and traffic. You know, building authority and credibility, inbound links and all that stuff. There are, however, some secondary benefits that might be even more valuable over the long term. After the interview was done, I received a complimentary copy of the report, even though I was not an SPL member. (It turned out very well, by the way. Rena did an awesome job, even without my input ) Second I made not one, but two new friends. If you’re guessing that Rena is one of them, you’re right. The other is TonyB, one of the owners of BC, and a pretty cool guy all around.

He very kindly upgraded my BC membership to a premium membership for 6 months, for free! Now that is cool! Some of the premium benefits include no ads and increased exposure to the BC community (read more traffic). Being a good interviewee now opens me up to the possibility of more interviews in the future, exposing me and my blogs to even more people. This is free advertising, and I get to help people to boot!

But the one thing that really stands out for me, is the idea that you don’t have to be an expert to get interviewed. It’s all well and good to listen to an expert expound on a topic you’re interested in, but the downside is that these experts are all too often distanced from the days that they were still learning. What is easy for them now, wasn’t always. Beginners, while benefiting from the experience of the expert, also need someone to talk to who is right there beside them, in the trenches, figuring it out for the first time.

The third thing that came out of all of this is some new article topics for techne-eikon. First on the list is a review of BlogCatalog. The second is to try out the Social Power Linking program. While I had heard Jack Humphrey’s name floating around before, I had never really looked at his offerings prior to this. Now, having taken a look, I am signed up for the three days for a dollar trial offer, just to get an inside look. The regular membership goes for $30 a month, and my preliminary glance seems to indicate that it could be worth the price. Especially when you consider that other memberships in this industry go for thousands of dollars.

I’ll report on my experiences with SPL in a future article. In the meantimes I will be looking out for more interview opportunities (hint, hint), because more than anything else, doing the interview for Jack and Rena was fun! And who doesn’t like having fun?