What You Should Include When You Write a Bio
In business and journalism lingo, a bio is short for biography. One of the reasons it’s short is because it’s not a book, nor is it a resume or a lengthy history. At the same time, when you write a bio, there are a number of different iterations you may consider.
After all, your life has many twists, turns and triumphs, and not all are appropriate for every venue or reader. The parts to share in your bio depend on the audience for whom you’re writing it. The length depends on your purpose. The form it takes depends on who/what/where/why/when/how factors:
- Who you expect to read your words
- What your bio accompanies (e.g., a book, report or presentation)
- Where you plan on publishing your bio
- Why you need a bio
- When it needs to be ready
- How detailed it needs to be
Write a Bio for Your Website
Today, a website is a common platform to place your bio. A bio on a website typically goes under a link entitled Meet Our Team or About Us (see ours). You may even include your bio on your homepage if it seems appropriate. This strategy not only identifies you to your visitors, it also provides extra copy to make the page search-engine friendly by creating long-form content.
When you write a bio for your website, the length and style should be driven by:
- The tone you take on the rest of your site
- The industry that you’re representing
- Your target market or audience
For example, if you’re a physician, you don’t want to write a bio with information about how you play with your cat on weekends, although it may be prudent to include information about your fitness activities. On the other hand, if you’re a local plumber, your customers may want to know that you’re pet-friendly, but they won’t care so much if you’re in shape or not.
The length of a bio on your website shouldn’t be longer than 500 words, or you risk losing the interest — and respect — of your readers. Don’t bore them with irrelevant details. Shoot for a balance of education, experience, interests and passions. Remember that consumers and companies do business with people and firms that they like, so make yourself likeable.
Write a Bio to Find Work
Another common place where you may need to write a bio for is on your social media platforms, particularly on LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn bio is known as your profile (see ours), but its purpose is the same. It’s still a bio, a shorted version of your biography or life story, just geared to business and business experience.
And it can reflect a little more personality than your resume normally does. Job-hunting requires taking advantage of every possible avenue to show off your skills, attitude, background and goals. As on your resume, you can’t lie, but you can make yourself look as positive as possible. Have you enjoyed some success? Tout it! Accomplished something special? Brag on it!
You can use the bio that you create for your social media in a cover letter that gets attached to your resume when applying for a job. If it’s well done, it speaks to your strengths, which is what an employer wants to see. Add a salutation, a signature and few more salient lines, and it’s good to go!
Write a Bio for a Press Release
Probably the shortest form of self-promotion and introduction goes into a press release. Press releases, which Ray Access writes, never should be longer than one page. And that includes everything! You want to hit the highlights so that media types can get just enough information to whet their appetites. You want them to be hungry for more.
Remember your audience when sending out a press release. News organizations, magazine writers, funders and successful bloggers take mere seconds to read a press release, so yours needs to be just that — a condensed version of your Best Of. At a minimum, it may contain only your title, contact information and one anecdote or feature.
Write a Bio for Other Reasons
Maybe you need a bio to tag onto an application for a board seat. Perhaps your alumni organization wants one for the next reunion magazine. Whatever the reason, writing about yourself is one of the most difficult tasks imaginable for some people. Writing bios never should be so overwhelming that the process shuts you down.
You can always call on Ray Access to write a bio for all the various places you may need one, even if the need arises for something unique. We have the advantage of having former journalists on staff. Journalists are adept at honing down to the truth.
If you hire a writer for your bio, she may need to interview you to really get a feel for your personality — especially if you need a bio that expresses your true self. If that’s too much of a bother, you can complete a short questionnaire, which is good enough if you just need a bio to match the others in your firm.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.