Social media bios have replaced business cards – they are a short, punchy way to say a lot about yourself. Your Social media bio is one of the first things you need to add to your profiles – especially if your plan is to use that page or profile as your promotion device.
Your bio should be unique and it should stand out from the crowd. But, there are also some general questions each social media bio should answer. Here are those questions:
Who are you?
This is an obvious one but it’s essential. You should use your most commonly used and familiar name. For instance, if your real name is Alicia Jane Downing but most people know you as Allie, you should use that one. If you have a blog or a site and a following that knows you as Ally Cat, you should use that name then.
Bigger companies should state what their account is about – if it’s for customer concerns, you can think of a name that insinuates that. Multinational companies should also use separate accounts for all of their different locations.
Use hashtags that are relevant to your niche. In the example of Starbucks below, you can see that they used a #coffeelove to attract the kind of audience that loves coffee. If your brand is a bookstore, you can use #ilovebooks or #booklove , for instance. Make sure that your hashtags serve to lead someone who would be interested to you.
What do you do?
What do you do doesn’t mean that you should talk about your job but rather mention some of the things that you are working on or doing in your free time. For example, you could be an executive at a large company but in addition to that you could be a breast Cancer awareness advocate or a fashionista. This is your time to say it.
“Be creative, list things that you really care about. Show how diversified your skills and interests are. Companies can implement this by talking about their values and goals”, – says Gretchen Gosselyn, a digital marketer from Uktopwriters.
While Hillary Clinton didn’t use any hashtags in the picture below, she could have and that would have gotten her more like-minded followers. While she may get a lot of attention even without the hashtags, any business could benefit from them.
For instance, you could turn your projects into hashtags which would in turn lead like-minded individuals to you or your brand. In this case, it could be #WomenandKidsAdvocate or a name of an organization she is working with.
Where do you work?
This is a section that may sound similar to the previous one but it’s not. The aim here is to simply inform on what you are doing, where you are working.
For personal profiles, you can state your position and include your company’s official twitter handle. However, don’t overdo it by adding all of your previous engagements. Some of them may not even show your work properly and you should mostly just stick to your current or – if unemployed at the moment – best workplace.
As a brand, you should include more information on your current positioning.
What are your interests?
This question should give your followers some insight on what you will mostly be discussing in your posts. It can help you attract like-minded people and increase your reach if you add tags to it. This also helps you stand out from the crowd and gives you a little flair.
You can turn your interests into hashtags in this case as well, especially if you have an interest that might get a lot of attention from other users or bring similar people to you.
What is your tone of addressing like?
“Your Social bio can also help users understand your tone of voice. If they are going to follow you, they want to know what you sound like. Are you funny? Sarcastic? Do you like to share memes? All of this will be easy to read from your bio”, – says Diane Robinson, SMM from Essayroo.
How do I find out more about you?
Finally, there should be a link with a call-to-action there, inviting your followers to learn more about you, see your products or services, visit your personal site and so on. Don’t forget to include it.
Writing and editing tools
In order to have a good social media bio, it needs to be well-written and accurate. It’s one of the first things your followers will see and you want it to look good. For one, you should make sure that the style and length are adapted to each platform. Your bio should translate well from platforms with more room for writing like LinkedIn to Twitter, for instance. Next, you need to avoid making grammar and spelling mistakes as much as you can. These leave a poor first impression and cause confusion.
Here are some tools that can help you:
- Writingpopulist and Revieweal – Writing a social media bio is just like writing any other copy. You have to be brief but interesting. Use these copywriting guides full of tips on writing the best bio.
- Oxessays – Editing is a useful process when writing bios because your message needs to be clear on each platform. This is an editing tool that you will find helpful.
- Ukwritings and Bestbritishessays – Every bio needs a little flair, something compelling to grab the attention and entice the users to follow. Here are some power word generators.
- Letsgoandlearn and Academ advisor – After you are done writing your social media bio, you can use these tools to check your grammar.
- Studentwritingservices – To draw some attention and make your bio look good on each of your profiles, use this formatting tool.
Hashtags
Finally, hashtags are one of the most important elements of your bio. Because there is so little space on most social media platforms, hashtags allow you to cram in as much about yourself as you can while being effective and optimizing your profile for “findability”.
For instance, you can use hashtags to show your interests like photography or music or share hashtags of your company or your brand which can then lead people to you.
This is especially important if your main goal is to expand your reach.
Over To You
Social media is a fun place to show your personality and connect with people. The way people get to know you is your social media bio so make sure that it looks good by answering these questions.
Author Bio
Freddie Tubbs is a social media strategist at Academized. He also works as a content writer and editor at Australian reviewer, and regularly contributes articles to Writemyaustralia blog.
