Jason Alba is Inspiring. How to write a post title that gets attention.

While some of my post titles are semi-obscure musical references that mainly amuse myself, other titles are more direct and clearly try to lure people in to reading my wonderful prose. But as far as I can recollect, I have never written a post title as bold as the one that I recently read. In the blog I'm on LinkedIn - Now What?, writer Jason Alba began a post with an emphatic statement:

Kyle Lacy is Brilliant.

Now you normally don't see a statement like that in a post title. Alba goes on to explain why Lacy is brilliant:

I am regularly asked “do you have an example of someone who ______ using LinkedIn?”

Perhaps they “found a job,” or “got rich,” or “sold a big account,” or something like that.

Alba then links to Lacy's post, in which he lists 20 (count 'em!) examples of ways in which LinkedIn can be used to...well, to do just about anything. For example, here's item 9:

9. Irish Software start up company Goshido used only LinkedIn to raise 230,000 dollars in eight days. They sent out 700 messages to potential investors, and garnered over 200 responses in a week. As found on LinkedIn Success Stories Frank Hannigan, Chairman for Goshido said, “Attracting investment is all about trust, LinkedIn is the largest collection of trust agents on the planet. We reduced the cost and time involved in fundraising 75% by using LinkedIn as our funding vehicle.” Did I mention it was all done on LinkedIn?

As it turns out, I am linked to Lacy on various services, so I went to Facebook and sent him a message with a link to Alba's post and the following message:

I just read about your brilliance. Your 20 case studies were thought-provoking.

But enough about Lacy's brilliance - what about Alba? Even if I had never heard of Kyle Lacy in my life, I'd certainly pay attention to a post that began with the statement "x is brilliant." (Unless, of course, the post was talking about Richard Butler, lead singer of the Psychedelic Furs.)

So I've made a resolution. If one of you does something brilliant, I need to emphasize that in my post title.

P.S. I can't remember how I initially heard about Kyle Lacy, but I definitely remember how I...um...linked to Jason Alba. In addition to the book I'm on LinkedIn - Now What?, Alba also co-wrote the book I'm on Facebook - Now What? with Jesse Stay.