The Official Klout Blog

Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About Liz: Liz Strauss has worked over 20 years in print, software, and online publishing. As VP and Publisher for an American textbook company, Liz developed products and strategic plans with publishers in Europe, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. She has worked small companies making acquisitions, companies in crisis, and corporate giants such as Pearson, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer. Her expertise extends from product development and marketing into business-startups and long-term strategic planning. Today, at Liz Strauss .com, Liz is a writer, career coach, and strategic planner with a focus on business writing, marketing, and educational publishing.

We asked…

1. How did you get started on social media?

“I’ve always loved connecting with people. When I was in college I wrote letters to 63 different people and used to get 7 – 8 letters a day. It drove my roommate crazy in the most fun way.

As far as online social goes, in 2005, a company I was working with asked me what I would charge if I wrote a blog for them. I decided I’d better start a blog to figure out how much time it would take. I thought it would be a good way to keep up my discipline as a writer — to write daily. I did. Then an audience came, responded, and we connected.

One day, May 9, 2006, I was bored. I put up a picture on Successful-Blog with a message that said tonight we’re going to talk in the comment box. We called it Open Comment Night.http://www.successful-blog.com/open-comments-at-tuesdays-at-7pm/ Every Tuesday night we talked in the comment box for about 4 hours. That eventually turned into our event SOBCon http://www.sobevent.com/ Then I joined Twitter March 16, 2007 and I suppose that’s when social media became integrated into my life.”

2. What’s your strategy for the content you produce and share on social media?

“My strategy is to know my own values, know how to recognize the people who share them, and focus on those two things. I believe if you want someone to listen to your message, the message has to be about them — the people you want to reach. The more focused the message is the louder the people who share your values will hear you. We don’t need to reach everyone. Some folks go chasing the people who ignore them and ignore the people who already love them. I try to serve the people who love what I do. When I do that, they tell their friends.

If your content makes someone’s life easier, makes more time for them, makes more meaning in their life, it will be irresistible.”

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their social media influence and presence to the next level?

“Advice? We’re all beginners. Keep that beginner’s mind. Learn from every person you meet. Share what you learn generously. Make a plan to reach out to someone new every day with something useful to that person. Take time to see the hero in the people around you and introduce your heroes to each other so that you all can grow. Invite them to help you build something that you can’t build alone. Make that something a wildly terrifying good thing. Believe you can do it. Then act on your beliefs one step at a time bringing along every great person you know.”

Want to hear more from Liz? Follow her on Twitter as @LizStrauss.

Let us know what you think of Klout Stars! If you’d like to be considered for a future Klout Stars post about your social media success please email contact@klout.com.