About YOU

I'm amazed when someone writes a terrific blog or has a great Twitter feed (or a presence on some other social networking site) but fails to say who they are. Don't they want to stand out from the crowd?

Your blog's "about" page, your Twitter bio and the other places you interact online are a great opportunity to say who you are! It is an essential element of personal branding. Don’t ignore the opportunity to tell the world about you.

What does your blogs About page say?

If you are taking the time to blog, you need to have a great About page that includes your photo, biography, affiliations, and information about your blog. Often when people visit a blog for the first time, they want to know about the blogger, so it is important to provide background.

This is very important for corporate blogs where you should tell readers who you are personally as well as your affiliation with your employer.

Here's what I do

I actually have several pages I point people to from the top left navigation of this blog.
Disclosure, comment, review, pitch, and use policies
About David Meerman Scott
About Web Ink Now

Note that I have chosen not to use the standard About page that comes with TypePad, the blog software that I use. Instead, I have created a few pages on my blog for information about it and my policies. And I point to a bio on my site.

Many blog software About page templates are terrible. I particularly hate the way Blogger does it. I have never seen a blog created in Blogger that has managed to navigate the template of the Blogger About template.

If you have a blog using Blogger and you've figured out how to make a professional looking about page, please comment here. Although I do not blog in Blogger, I do have a profile (which sucks big time). I have a profile because use it to leave comments. More information on comments are here.

What does your Twitter bio say?

You only get 160 characters. As a component of personal branding, this is a critical section. Don't leave it blank. And don't make a mini-resume from a laundry list of attributes like: "father, brother, surfer, economics major, world traveler, marketer, and rockstar wannabe." (That would be my list) I see this sort of thing all the time and it is not good for personal branding.

Try to be descriptive. And try to be specific. My Twitter bio is Marketing speaker and bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and the new book World Wide Rave

Make it easy for people to contact you

Encourage people to contact you, make it easy for them to reach you online, and be sure to follow up personally on your fan mail.

You'll get a bunch of inquiries, questions, praise, and an occasional detractor if you make it easy for people to contact you. Because of the huge problem with spam, many people don’t want to publish email addresses. But the biggest problem is with automated robots that harvest email addresses, so to thwart them, write your email address so humans can read it but the machines cannot. For example, I list my email address as david (at) DavidMeermanScott (dot) com.

What about you? How have you told the world about you on your blog or social networking sites?

Image: Vibrant Image Studio / Shutterstock

Comments

[Michelle Davidson]

I can't agree more about including contact information. If a person doesn't include it, I can generally find an email address or phone number in a Google search. But it can take some time -- time I could have spent actually communicating with that person.

[Scott Sehlhorst]

I do something similar to you, although I was able to use the Wordpress 'page' publishing to create http://tynerblain.com/blog/about-the-author/ and http://tynerblain.com/blog/about/ pages. The first is my short-form online resume, the latter is 'why you should read my blog.'

I also used Google's short-url to create http://go.tynerblain.com/sehlhorst as a redirect to the about-the-author page. I created an animated gif with several recent LinkedIn recommendations, and put it near the top of my about page. Since I'm a product management consultant, putting the "people you (would) trust like my work" message up front is, in my opinion, more effective than me telling people why they want to work with me. My twitter bio is pretty generic - "Product Manager, Business Analyst, Business Architect, Consultant http://go.tynerblain.com/sehlhorst" and then the 'live' link goes straight to my blog.

Looking forward to seeing how other folks do it too!

[Kyle Hansen]

I recently updated all my bios and contact info, not in this sophisticated manner as some above comments. But, the number of people contacting me has greatly increased.

[Beth Robinson]

An about page or bio is usually the next thing I do after setting up something new, even if it's just a forum membership. (Although I've likely forgotten a couple here and there.) My twitter one could use some work, though, as I have a laundry list. Oops. http://www.twitter.com/bethrobinson

I didn't like blogger's profile because I couldn't tailor it to be appropriate for different readers. My bio on the about page on my main blog - http://www.inventingelephants.com/about - is completely different from the one on my hub site, because I'm expecting a different audience - http://www.bethrobinson.me - and I will have yet another one when I launch my content marketing services site.

Since I build my sites on Squarespace I get a nifty contact form that sends email directly to me. I can also add my address and other text to it when I wish.

[steve garfield]

On my blogger blog, my about page links to a web page, made easily with Apple's iWeb.

http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/

You could also create an about page as a blogger post, and then link to hte permalink of that post.

[Remco Janssen]

Great post. I would like to make one small suggestion. When clicking on About David Meerman Scott-link (probably the most used link on your site), one is redirected to an external site - yournamedomain. This will work for conversion of your personal site, but it tends to anoy people who assume that they will stay on the same domain - your blog. Maybe better to make it appear in a new tab/window?

Looking forward to the interview in Amsterdam, next october!

[Kelly Rusk]

A great post, but I have to disagree on the Twitter bio.

I *like* when people select a few words that describe who they are and more specifically *what* they tweet about.

My bio reads: "Social media/web 2.0 fanatic. PR girl. Blogger. e-marketer. Foodie. Shoe-aholic. Mgr of Marketing & Communities @MediaMiser"

These are all words that not only describe who I am/how I identify myself, but more importantly it's an accurate description of what I tweet about and how often (from highest to lowest). With yours I get an essence of who you are but not what you tweet about.

So while it may not be a perfect bio format, IMHO because of the character restrictions it's perfect for the medium.

[Manuel Gruber]

I also think, that it's more important to give a short view on what you write. You should not leave out, who you are, but 1st is: How can my Blog help you?

On my new German Blog http://www.viprolog.at (there's not even yet a design besides the standard-template) I use Wordpress and just made a page named About Viprolog, where you can find both, information about the blog and me. In twitter i only have a short decription of what i do. Think that's enough.

[Tony Faustino]

I follow the Twitter Bio format described by @Kelly for the same reasons she describes. I think the "resume format" quickly summarizes the content of my tweets for a potential follower. Your point is well taken that I could describe my bio as Inbound Marketing Certified Professional and author of Social Media ReInvention Blog. However, I don't think that description provides a potential Twitter Follower enough data to make an informed decision about why he/she should follow me.

[David Meerman Scott]

Kelly and Tony - I'll have to re-think the idea of a bio like you describe. It seems to work for you two so I suspect I am wrong for resisting this format.

Thanks for making me think!

David

[Codruta]

I have some homework to do, create a better "about me" description. Thank you for reminding me.

[Ben Merrion]

Thank you for posting this. I have played around with my Twitter bio and am still open to changing it some more. Right now, it says: "I work for the DC Library; am trying to raise awareness of adult literacy in DC by connecting it to issues like poverty, homelessness and health care," which I think captures what I tweet about and am interested in.
I also wanted to put where I work since it's related and could give some kind of authority to what I post.

I noticed that before reading this post, I hadn't yet put a url, because initially, I didn't know what to put, so I just put up our center's Facebook page since we don't have a blog yet, put can use the notes feature as a blog instead.

I could have also used my
Google profile as well - which I found out about through one of your earlier blog entries.

Thanks again for the great info!

[Amelia Vargo]

I'd like to add that even if you have an 'about me' page you should still take time to regularly update it.

[Susan Fantle]

I'd like to add that if one of the reasons for having a blog is to generate business, then make sure the description not only includes what you do, but how your services help those who do business with you.

[Ricardo Bueno]

As I'm reading this and the more I think about it, my About Page is always something that I've struggled with. Sure it's easy to communicate who I am and what I do in-person, but it's always been just a wee bit more difficult to do so on my blog (then again, we are harsh critics of ourselves, no?).

In any case, a re-write and overhaul of the site is in order! My guess is I'll get started today...

[Sharon J.]

I agree with what you're saying here. I am also surprised at teh anonymity I find in blogs and social media sites. I don't think people capitalize on the opportunity to make a brand for themselves.