Originally published on the Disqus blog on January 6, 2016
I recently recapped an AMA we hosted with Andreesen Horowitz’s Benedict Evans during Business Insider’s IGNITION 2014. In this post, I wanted to walk through the process for running an AMA in your own community.
AMAs, or Ask Me Anything, are Q&A-style discussions wherein a guest is brought in to answer readers’ questions in an online forum. Readers have the opportunity to ask questions about the guest’s area of expertise and everything in between. The fine folks over at the BetaList and Rocketship.fm provide great examples of running AMAs from start to finish.
reddit demonstrated how powerful and engaging AMAs can be as the likes of President Obama, Ken Jennings, and other well-known figures stopped by to answer users’ questions.
Think about your own community for a second. Who are the stars, the experts, the authorities? If you run a movie community for instance, that could be a producer, writer, director, or an actor.
Rocketship.fm is a podcast about entrepreneurship where they regularly invite entrepreneurs to share their story about building a company. Since they were already inviting notable entreprenuers for interviews, some of their guests stuck around to answer listener’s questions.
When you’ve identified several people you’d like to invite for an AMA in your community, this is what your pitch should include:
Who are you and what do you want from me?
Quickly let the person know who you are and what you want. If you know a a mutual acquaintance, mention that person as that can grab their attention.
Example: Hi, my name is Tony and I oversee the community over at Swifties Unite. I was wondering if you’d be interested in a 30–60 minute AMA with our readers?
Why should I do this?
Example: As the largest online fan communities in the world, Swifties Unite has over 20 million avid Swifties who worship you. With your upcoming 1989 album release, this AMA would be a great opportunity to get fans (even more) stoked for the year’s delivery from the heavens.
Once you have a confirmed guest, the next step is to prepare for the AMA. Schedule a date and time. Send a calendar invite as a helpful reminder for your guest, especially if they agree to this weeks in advance.
Other things to consider: