An Interview With Giant Squid Susan52
Lensmaster and Giant Squid Susan52 has been with Squidoo since April 2007 and I have been of fan of hers for some time now.
Susan's lenses cover a range of interesting topics including Politics (Who Is Hillary Clinton, a Top 100 SquidWho lens), Squidoo How-To (Are You a Squidoo Nobody? How to Become a Squidoo Somebody in 6 Easy Lessons) and Cleaning, which is one of my favorite topics! Her Housework - Make it Fast, Make it Fun lens will have your house looking fabulous in no time.
In addition to her work on Squidoo, she also runs the SquidBoomers Blog where she features lenses about the Baby Boomer Generation AND...she's also Sassy Susan...Blogger Extraordinaire. "She's a politically incorrect, conservative, right wing, Christian, homeschooling, patriotic American blogger who sometimes just has to say what's on her mind". Wow...How cool is that!
Let's just say you can learn a lot from Susan. Here's a little interview I did with her. Enjoy!
Name 5 character qualities of a Giant Squid.
Generosity, creativity, genuineness, humor, and unselfishness. Unselfishness is about the same thing as generosity, I guess, but those are perfect qualities to both start and end the list. I don’t think I’ve ever met any group of people more generous with their time, knowledge, and expertise than the Giant Squids.
You've written some great Squidoo How-To's. What's the one most important thing a newbie needs to know to build a quality lens?
Hmm. Maybe the most important thing a newbie should know is that when they think they’re finished with a lens, they’re probably not. We’re all proud of a lens when we first publish it, but there is always, ALWAYS room for adding and improving. Sleep on it, improve it, then announce it. Then improve it some more.
You run the SquidBoomers Blog. What topics are the most important to the Baby Boomer generation?
I think it boils down to a couple of things. First are the physical aspects of aging and the sometimes very serious nature of those things, including dealing with simple aches and pains, to depression, to the possibility of Alzheimer's disease and all that entails. The second is that, despite the visible, external aspects of aging, people of my generation are still the same on the inside that we’ve always been, with the same needs, wants, and desires. It's important to help other people understand that we do still think young, so they can embrace and understand us and even provide for us as we endeavor to grow older with dignity and grace – with a little silliness thrown in for good measure.
What's your favorite Squidoo Co-Brand (i.e. SquidWho, SquidLit) and why?
SquidWho is my favorite. It's such a simple platform to work with, yet it's challenging to develop a really good SquidWho lens by digging deep and learning more than just superficial facts about the subject, then finding creative ways to share those things on the lens. I've learned so much that I didn't know about the subjects of my SquidWho lenses and have really enjoyed that.
What off site (i.e. Facebook, Twitter) resources do you use to market your lenses? What are your favorites?
Marketing is definitely my weak point, but I see huge potential in Twitter and have actually made a contact or two there recently that I believe will be very helpful to me from a joint venture marketing perspective in the future. I also like to tie blog posts on my own blogs or comments on other people’s blogs to my Squidoo lenses, something I don’t do often enough, though I definitely get lens traffic when I take the time to do that. Follow Susan on Twitter: http://twitter.com/susan52
I'd like to thank Susan for taking the time to do an interview. I'm going to be featuring 1-2 Giant Squids per week on this blog so stay tuned...
