I had a great serendipitous experience this month, it all started when I noticed a great blog post that had some un-answered comments. The author happened to be someone that I have now learned is exceptional about responding to comments but there had been a technical challenge making it difficult for her to do so. If you want to hear the rest of that part of the story you can view this post on amplify, but that is not what this post is about. This post is about meeting that person, none other than Liz Strauss, in SF for lunch. When I saw her tweet that she just landed in SF I reached out to see if we might meet for coffee or lunch while she was in town. Eventually we worked something out and I was headed to SF to meet a fantastic blogger and person.
When Liz came across the street she was finishing a phone call and she stretched out her arms to give me a hug. To me this was a great gesture for someone I was meeting for the first time. We grabbed a table inside and started to chat. One of the things that struck me right away is how Liz was asking me a lot of questions, gauging my knowledge with sincere interest. Before long she began to share with me a lot of great ideas about blogging, being found, Twitter, hired help and other things. I am going to highlight that information in this post because much of it has been extremely valuable to me.
- Some tips about article titles.
- A strategy to find some help.
- A great strategy for engaging content creators on Twitter.
Some prudent advice on article titles
Liz gave me some great advice, in a very simple way, about how to title articles. She suggested that you read your article and determine what question it answers and build the subject around that. The thought process was brilliant, when people search for that question they are likely to find your article with content relevant to their question. I know people that love tricky titles may not like this approach, but you can always tweet out different content and see which one works better. I have taken this method very much to heart and I am utilizing it when appropriate here on my blog.
A strategy to find some help
I explained to Liz that I cut back on my manpower over the past two years and I am the only full time employee at my company. I also explained that I am enjoying it but there are times when I would like to delegate some work. Liz asked about universities in the area and explained an excellent way to establish a relationship with professors and their top students. The idea is that you reach out to the appropriate subject matter professor – Computer Science if you’re looking for IT, Marketing if you need marketing and so forth. You offer to get involved with classes, possible helping with providing your area of expertise as a resource. You also ask if they have students that might be interested in internships. Going through the professor the idea develops further, they have a vested interest in the success. They are likely to suggest their best students, wanting to make sure that things work out since they are involved.
Engaging quality content creators on Twitter
The premise for this was simple, whenever you share an article see if you can’t find the author on Twitter and reference them in the Tweet. If they are monitoring their Twitter account at all they are likely to follow you and even RT you. This seems really obvious, but in an age where content curation has become so critical this technique is that much more valuable. Liz is an absolute pro blogger and power Twitter user. In fact look at what Klout says about her:
“You have the amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about.”
A little about Liz
While Liz was so generous with her time, I worked at learning more about what she does. I was pleased to hear that she does public speaking, puts on SOBCon and consults with clients helping them navigate social media. I have added the SOBCon event to my “must do” events for 2011 and I confess I am completely pumped up about it. You can find Liz via @lizstrauss on Twitter and via successful-blog.com.
[…] and I have been to Portland and Chicago every year since. The background story was yet another “Liz Strauss story” nearly everyone at SOBCon has […]