How to Write an Awesome Professional Bio That Stands Out (Template)

How to Write an Awesome Professional Bio That Stands Out (Template) As a marketer, you’ll likely need to write a professional bio at some point. Whether writing one for yourself, a client, or coworkers listed on your company’s â€Å"about us† page, it’s a common piece of content you might be asked to create. They appear everywhere, from social media profiles, to blog post author boxes, to personal and business websites. Too often though, they’re treated like an afterthought, which is unfortunate. After all, what’s the first thing you read when you come across an interesting blog post, a new company, or social media account? A bio is a natural place to start. So, what happens if what you find sounds boring or generic? You’ll think that person is boring and generic too, and that isn’t the kind of impression any serious marketer should want to make. Fortunately, business doesn’t have to be boring, and neither does anyone’s professional summary. In this post, you’ll find: Tons of examples illustrating what makes effective bios so good. A simple process to make writing one, either for yourself or a client, easy. Free templates to wrap up the whole project in a flash. Sure, you could settle for boring and generic. But, you’re better than that. So, keep reading and learn how to do the job right. What is ? is an industry-leading marketing management calendar platform that helps teams keep everything organized, all in one place. See how it works or start your free trial now. Download Your Free Professional Bio Templates Best of all, you don’t have to write one from scratch. Instead, download these free templates and you’ll be able to fill in the blanks to write one well. There are options here for the following: Websites Blog authorship boxes Twitter profiles Snag ‘em now and continue with the rest of this post. In general, they’re a description or summary of someone’s professional background, educational history, skill set, and/or achievements. In some cases, such as a Twitter bio, they might be short, or in others they could be a few paragraphs (such as on an about page on a blog or website). What Makes Them So Important? People come across so many different pieces of information on the web that it’s tough to keep everything straight. It’s impossible to remember every interesting thing you come across, let alone filter through the overwhelming amount of junk you see that isn’t interesting at all. So, make your first impression something that sticks. If a social media user sees a stray post that catches their attention, they’ll want to see if it came from someone who looks and sounds trustworthy. The same goes for a blog post they might read, or a new company they’re scoping out for a potentially lucrative partnership. Whatever the case may be, a strong bio is an opportunity to leave a lasting impression. If it’s written well, people might be more influenced to consider you an authority, someone to remember to reach out to, or eventually, even make a purchase from. When Would You Need to Write a Bio? There are lots of different situations where you might need to provide a bio. Here are a few: You work at a marketing or PR agency, and a client needs one to make an executive sound brilliant. It’s time to hunt for a new job, and your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles need some freshening up. The company’s website is getting a redesign, and each employee’s profile page needs a bio to go with it (and you get to/have to write it). Those are common scenarios everyone encounters sooner or later. Since they seem so easy to write, they can quickly become a trap though, something that doesn’t get done until the last minute (and things that get done at the last minute, tend to get done poorly). Recommended Reading: How to Easily Plan Copy for an Entire Website the Best Way Where Might Your Bio Appear? Plus, there are all kinds of places where it’s useful to have a crisp, clean, and creative description of yourself (or client or coworkers). Take a look at this list: Your company’s website or blog. Guest blogs (if you write on another company or writer’s blog). Any personal websites, blogs, or portfolio pages you might have. On your social media accounts. Within press releases about your company (say, if an executive plays a key part in a major achievement). Certainly, you can probably think of even more, too. But, if you have one that’s well-written, it can easily be repurposed and repackaged to fit wherever it’s needed. And that leads into the next point in this post. How Long Should a Bio Be? There’s no one-size-fit-all answer here. Social media accounts often have obvious restrictions on character counts that limit length. If you’re writing one to appear in a press release boiler plate or a blog bio box, a paragraph is generally sufficient. But, if you’re writing one for a website page, you might be able to run as short, or as long, as you’d like. In fact, there are arguments to be made for keeping things concise or going more in-depth. Recommended Reading: How Long Should a Blog Post Be to Get the Most Shares and Traffic? Why Consider Writing a Short Professional Bio People have short attention spans. According to the Nielsen Norman Group (via Crazy Egg), you have 59 seconds to hook a website viewer’s attention before they’ll leave. And they’re going to see a lot of things before they even get to your bio (headlines, homepage copy, and product pages are all possible places they’ll visit first). If hooking someone’s attention is hard, keeping it might be even more difficult, and arguably, no one wants to spend too much time getting to know you if they don’t have to. So, why not just get to the point? Take a look at this example from Influence and CO. founder John Hall: It’s just a couple concise paragraphs, plus a line for his email address. Note the smart inclusion of a Twitter follow button, too. This works because: It gets to the point. But, it doesn’t sacrifice substance for short length. It just excludes anything extraneous. The inclusion of links to other places to find him are smart. Writing a professional bio? Here's why you might want to keep it short.Why Consider Writing a Long Professional Bio But, what if you’re writing a description of a seasoned professional with tons of experience? How do you condense everything important to know about them into a short amount of space? That can be tough. And if people are likely to want to know all about the person’s story, it might make more sense to go long (spanning a few paragraphs, or even a whole page or more). Here’s another example from Darren Rowse, the founder of ProBlogger: While this bio is still fairly compact, it spans multiple paragraphs, and even includes a video. Then, it extends a bit further to include more information about Darren and his business: This works because: It puts the most important information first. While it goes into detail, it’s still tightly written. All additional information included is relevant and useful.