What is in a Title? Quite a Bit

During my internship days, many moons ago, I was seated in the same room as my project lead, a man of tall order with a baritone voice and deep eyes. I was animatedly presenting my results of my work. He had a copy of power point slide (its early days) that I had given him. He had a quizzical brow all along my presentation. When I finally wrapped up my explanation, he sat back, eased his eyebrows and spoke with a deadpan expression in his deep voice, “this is really great work but why did you not share where you were going in the slide title? All along your explanation, I was wondering where you were leading me.” That threw me off guard. I just reexamined the slide. It just said “Analysis.” I relooked at the white space reserved for titles with newfound reverence. I just then realized, if done thoughtfully, titles could bring comfort to the curious audience. A lesson I tugged in my memory.

Reading blogs on LinkedIn brought back those memories. I did a double take on some titles- the content was great and the element of the unexpected in the title took these blogs to stratospheric heights. After I read original blogs, I often wondered how I would have titled them and that experience lets me savor the beauty in some blogger’s brilliance in titling. I would like to take you on the same road, hope you enjoy the ride with these three examples that taught me some wonderful new ways to expand my horizons when it comes  to creating first impressions. 

Synopsis of the blogs: How would you title them? 

 1) The author wrote about his son’s escapade in selling popcorn as a boy scout - the frequent rejections and the occasional exhilarations when his son made a sale. Along the way, the author shares some profound sales nuggets that formal lecturing can never come close to. Over dinner, his son acknowledges that selling is hard work.

How you would you title this blog?

2) This author shares with us the high and low moments in his dads life and his first hand experience of seeing his talented dad lose a part of him when he lost his job. The author follows through with a gem of an advice, there is more to life than a job. In his words, straight from his heart -“You’re still here, even if your job isn't.” 

In your words, What title comes to your mind?

3) The author recently lost his job, he eloquently lays his emotional state threadbare before and after the event, embellishing with the events of the day as a backdrop. Instead of the conventional tone of anger, disappointment, reflection for corrective steps; the author positions the firing as a consequence of his own state of disengagement for a period of time, much before the firing.

What were the real titles and what did I learn from them? 

1) “Thanks for not buying popcorn from my son” by Trey Tomkins

What I really like about this title by Trey is the word that was not written but the whole title was principally about.  In other words – Thank YOU for not buying popcorn from my son. Selling is from the perspective of a salesperson; the word buy/buying is from the perspective of the audience – the customer, the reader etc. Here is a title that got the basics of selling right! It also had a word that talks about personal experience –“my.” This combination of structures is what drew me subconsciously to this blog. The content was obviously a great bonus. I think I was not alone, last count it had 1.3+ million views and 10+K digital acknowledgement imprints!

2) “If You Lose Your Job, Remember This” by Dustin McKissen

There were so many emotions in this blog, the eventual title surprised me in many good ways. I started to get a great appreciation for the word “this”. He could have easily said “If You Lose Your Job, remember you are still here” instead he chose the word “this” at the end. There was a sense of magnetism with the word “this” that propelled me to open up the blog and read. The picture of him with his dad added intrigue. It was/still is one of the most memorable blogs by Dustin with an extra-ordinary amount of engagement from his readers.

3) “Something In Me Quit, Long Before I Was Fired” by Jason Versey

First time in my life, I chuckled while reading a title, long before I opened it. This one is extraordinary in many dimensions. For starters, it was all about one person – me and I, quite against the conventional wisdom of titles. Yet it brought a creative tension between two discordant words – quit and fired. The creative title was only surpassed by the creative content writing. Lot of people shared that view, last count more than 56 K views.

Summary

How to name awesome content, is an enduring enigma from power points to blog posts. This experience has always left me wondering - what is the gift for the audience - the content or the beautiful wrapping around it called the title. My takeaway is that, when done well, it is hard to figure out which made the bigger contribution. When it all comes together, they form a wholesome, complete package that does something memorable in the readers mind. The best ones seamlessly blend when it comes to ease of understanding and yet standout when it comes to the emotions they evoke. That is the holy grail of great packages – content, title et al.

I am very interested in your recollection of memorable titles that stood pillar to pillar with content.

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Karthik Rajan

I enjoy writing about the connections between human relationships and analytics.