11 Jul Three Different Biographies Everyone Needs
Everyone needs a biography, right? True.
But you actually need more than one bio. In truth, I believe everyone needs three different biographies, namely:
- Your Long Bio,
- Your Short Bio, and
- Your LinkedIn Bio.
What goes into Your Long Bio?
Your Long Bio is probably the easiest of the three Bios to write. But let’s be clear. A biography is not designed to be a resume, documents typically written in an often stilted, clipped tone and full of sentence fragments.
Rather, Your Long Bio should be written in complete sentences, with more of a conversational style. Specifically, Your Long Bio is designed read aloud as if someone were introducing you to an audience gathered to hear an important presentation from you. And in this regard, the most important items to include in Your Long Bio are those items that (when considered across the breadth of your career), will provide the listener with the best summary of your professional highlights.
Length-wise, I believe Your Long Bio should come in somewhere between 250—300 words in total length.
What goes into Your Short Bio?
Once you’ve written Your Long Bio, writing Your Short Bio is much easier. Except that it’s not, as you now need to pare a 250- to 300-word biography down to 60—75 words. Total. And that’s tough.
The two keys here are
- Brevity, and
- Preciseness.
What goes into Your LinkedIn Bio?
Officially, Your LinkedIn Bio is known as Your LinkedIn Profile. Be that as it may, for the purposes of this article, I am using the term Your LinkedIn Bio.
So what goes into Your LinkedIn Bio? Well from my perspective, just about everything. I believe you can think of it as Your Kitchen Sink Bio. You can also think of it as your Professional Online Resume, which is what in fact Your LinkedIn Bio actually is.
The most recent data says that there are now over 500 million LinkedIn Profiles around the globe, which is a pretty astounding fact, one that’s hard to imagine at the same time. However, if you’re like me, after you meet someone for the first time in a professional setting, chances are you look that person up on LinkedIn. And that highlights both the beauty (and the scary nature) of LinkedIn. It also emphasizes why having (and maintaining) Your LinkedIn Bio is so crucial in today’s environment.
I won’t spend a lot more energy here going into what should or should not be included within Your LinkedIn Bio as there have been entire books dedicated to the topic. But I do believe everyone with an ounce of professionalism about him or herself has to have an account on LinkedIn. And as for how long or detailed Your LinkedIn Bio should be, my answer is simple: As long and detailed as necessary.
Having three different biographies at the ready is just one example of how anyone can begin to craft, support and control his or her own Personal Brand.
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What do you think? Am I off-base or on point here? Please share your thoughts / comments below.
A marketing and communications expert, David L. Politis recently published his first book — 66 RULES for Publicity Success: Boost Your Company’s Value for Pennies on the Dollar. David currently helps clients address their crises, publicity and marketing challenges through The David Politis Company.
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