Coming straight from our blog at bangthetable.com:
Writing project headlines to engage your community online is both an art and a science. There are some things that you simply must and must not do. Once you have these rules down pat, like any creative endevour, you can play around with things a little to drive up participation rates.
The project headline is critical to the success of your engagement process.
It is the first thing people see. It is, more often than not, the only thing people read. On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of your title, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire site.