Background Research You Need for Video Interview

For your video interviews, to get  great answers, you must first ask the right questions.

When you plan to film interviews on camera, always do appropriate background research on your guests, and on the topic of your interview. Always remember that to get great answer you must first ask the right questions!

Welcome to our new #ProTips series “Interview Like Boss”, a video series where we help you create perfect video interviews.

In each video, we share all the tips you need to prepare and film interviews with guests.

Today we focus on background research. Be sure to find out as much as you can about your guest, and plan your questions accordingly.

This pre-planning will raise the quality  of the interview, save time, and help create a good relationship between you and your guest.

Here are some points to think about when preparing your questions:

1.Ask about the person’s habits and practices

This is a good way for you or your audience to build a clearer picture of the person you’re interviewing

2. Ask open-ended questions

These are an invitation to your interviewee to open up about a topic, and give you some ideas about follow-on “how” questions.

3.Ask for clarification

If your interviewee starts getting technical in their responses, don’t be afraid to ask them to explain what they mean. If you’re not quite clear on what they are trying to say, you can be sure that many in your audience will be similarly confused.

4. Don’t be afraid to rock the boat, but ultimately you want to keep it steady

Try to mix up the tone of your questions. Ask a probing question, that’s likely to get your audiences’ ears prick up, but mix this with a question which elicits a more light-hearted entertaining response.

Finally, and of course: practice, practice, and practice some more! Doing so will help you to think on the spot more quickly, formulate great questions, deliver them more fluently, and become more creative with our language usage.

Check our production below to know more about conducting great interviews:

Other episodes in the series:

Episode 1 – Making Guests Comfortable