You’d think that running a business should be a serious matter.
Who has time to dilly-dally anyway, right?
After all, we’ve got mountains to move, audiences to conquer, competition to leave in the dust…
You’d think…
Yet some of us think we are way too clever for that.
Who says we can’t take over the online world and clown around on the side (just in case that online business thing doesn’t pan out)?
I shouldn’t really say WE.
Until yesterday, Ana Hoffman was all business.
See, I’ve got all the bases covered: branding, hashtags, ego…
THAT was yesterday though.
Today I caught a “Twitter bio” bug and convinced myself that I can be way funnier than all these people combined, I changed some things around.
You’ll have to wait to see my new bio at the end of the slide deck, but for now, here are some of the folks that inspired the change (and gave me a lot of ideas to copy – thank you!).
Give Way to Twitter Bio Masters
How to Craft a Great Twitter Bio
Inspired?
Thought you might be.
The following Twitter bio tips might go against the grain of conventional Twitter wisdom, but that’s exactly what you want – be unique, different, and bold.
Be short. 160 characters short, to be more precise.
Who says you have to use all the characters? Shorter, to the point bios stand out more.
Hook them from the start. Don’t save the best for last; the last might never come.
Perfect platform for “10 3 things you never knew about me”.
Forget about keywords and SEO. The only people who’ll be looking for you that way are spammers.
You can add even more cleverness by cleverly using the “Location” space for more clever information (notice how some fun Twitter folk did it in the slide deck above).
You don’t have to link to your home page. In fact, you might want to link to a page that might be more suitable for your Twitter followers. For instance, at Traffic Generation Café it might be something like this: Social Media Traffic 101 or Promote Your Business.
Have a multi-interest disorder? Have multiple Twitter accounts. I do. And Tweet Adder makes it easy to run them. Have a different bio tailored to each one.
Twitter Bio Marketing Takeaway
1. Have one.
2. Be unique.
3. Tweet the ish out of this post.
See you on the “funny” side!
From Ana with
PS Thought it might be nice to add a few more newly redesigned/redefined/reinvented Twitter bios that were influenced by this post.
I love reading Twitter bios. Some funny/creative people on there. I find Twitter to be therapeutic as well 🙂
Same here, Adam; love the creativity!
Haha, I enjoy your twitter collection too much that I laugh out loud and people here, at the coffee shop, are staring at me. Some of them have pretty brilliant ideas that I can put into my own twitter bio too. Thank you Anna
Glad you had a chuckle, Dorothy.
One think I’ve noticed in everyone’s Twitter profile is that they’re trying to introduce themselves too much and talking about them in their bio, while It’s not all about you. One should let others know what they can do for them, of course keeping it short works best.
Checkout mine Ana, and suggestions will be appreciated. Here’s the copy of my Twitter bio:
“Discharged from the FC Barcelona Football club. kidding. Soccer lover, I blog and run the guide to blogging community. Start your on today (And then link to my ultimate guide to starting a blog post).”
It’s nice, Ehsan – you have a touch of humor, but still tell folks what you do.
Hate to break it to you, Astro, but I think they’ll live. 🙂
Professional Twitter bios are so boring.If you are looking to get traffic to your own site from Twitter, then you need to be unique in some way . Everyone knows (well, maybe not spammers) that sharing useful and helpful stuff on social sites is the key to success and that used to be a way to stand out from the crowd.
I really enjoyed this post, so I shared it on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.
Thanks for sharing, Tom!
Just finished my bios on 2 professional accounts. Have to see if they’re funny, but they’re creative…
Why don’t you copy and paste them here, Ivin; we’ll take a look.
My personal bio reads: ‘The only Sa blogger on Twitter who really cares about the unemployed (& professionally frustrated). HBSR helps you make money from home in your civies. ‘ and my publishing bio reads: ‘The award winning ‘arse-kicker’ of publishing. Write, ..edit, … publish… Get to it, you’re not going to get it done reading my bio…’ Thoughts?
I like them, Ivin – definitely have a lot of personality.
Hey Ana,
Makes me seriously think about changing our Twitter bio. I really enjoyed this piece which by the way was given a little commentary by one of the curator’s on our platform which was how I came across your site. Thanks for a great post!
Checked out your site, saw some familiar names there; very interesting.
Thanks for coming by, Tom.
Hey Ana,
This made me actually laugh out loud a couple times. Very funny. It makes sense why more and more people are going for a funny bio than a professional one. The humor makes you much more approachable and human.
I always try to keep my bios professional yet personal, but I think it might be time for me to go back and write a much more funny bio.
Anyway, awesome post as always 🙂
– Mark T.
Professional doesn’t cut it any more, Mark.
Thanks for coming by!
Hi Ana,
Great post, also my vote is in. Good luck!
Much appreciated, Herby.
funny bios make me interested, but pushy funny bios seem a bit much… Liked Emma Waverman’s best! Chaos is the word of the day 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it, Alexandra.
Great, Detailed and Innovative! Thanks for sharing. Time to change my Twitter bio.
I agree that the funny bios. It is awesome and really interesting. Promoting your site was not so easy to be done, you must be always on way to be inspired on everything you do and be patient.
Thanks for sharing with me.
Ana,
A little disappointed with this update being I expected by now you’d be sharing posts we can put up on our big screens TV’s!
Guess I’ll have to guts it up and view this on the pc 🙂
Reading your posts are entertaining and informative and entertaining is a universal language you tend to use well!
Thanks again for the humor and time it took to ‘gather’ all this!
Speaking just for myself, I believe if you can’t have fun while doing something, why do it?
Laughter besides a great sedative for stress, can also motivate since it seems to make it ‘all’ worthwhile!
Stay fun, be well and keep us motivated 🙂
TJ
:), TJ – is that a challenge?
I could not stop cracking up at all of these bios. My bio has been put to shame. I am gonna run over and fix that mess I call a bio. Seriously, this was a great article! And the tip about not needed to worry about SEO was awesome. I used to worry about that. Not anymore.
Glad you enjoyed it!
LOL; I love this, Ana!
And your new bio… GENUS. I think I’ll take some inspiration from this and tweak my Twitter bio. My current bio isn’t really that professional but you’ve inspired me to go even more against the grain.
Here’s to excellent branding through rebellion. 😉
Ti
I think my Twitter bio looks even more crappy. I should really change and make it short and effective. Thanks, Anna! I’ve got some great ideas 😉
Thanks, Ti. 🙂 Let me know when you polish yours to shine!
Hello Ana.
I’ve tried different Twitter profile descriptions and yes, some of them help me get more followers, some others are better for engagement.
I should work on mine again. It’s been a few months since my last change.
That was pretty interesting. Thanks for guiding a way to compose a funny twitter bio. Hooking and being interesting from the start is a good tip to engross the reader.
I agree that the funny bios are awesome. I think they make the people look more approachable and fun, don’t you? I’d be more willing to follow one of those people if I saw their bio pop up somewhere (without even knowing who they are).
Thanks for the heads up as always. Off to edit my bio. It won’t be funny – yet. I have to think more about that and make sure I have something great.
Definitely, Anne.
And I’ll take “great” over “funny” every time!
Ha…loved the Twitter bios! Good luck with the Circle of Moms contest!
I love the idea of making twitter profiles more fun. I could sit here all afternoon trying to be clever, though, but at least I’ve had a go at a more light-hearted version of the previous one!
I liked your bio, Tora; it definitely goes well with your blog, which by the way, I loved.
That was great, Ana. A neat collection of odd people. 🙂
This inspired me to change my Twitter profile – and while I’m sure not everyone will like it, it reflects my attitude better than it did, which makes me happy.
Hopefully it will make my target audience gravitate towards me even more.
I like it, Lindsey; added it to the post!
Aww! Thank you Ana! Honestly I was very sleep deprived yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to fly (no pun intended) but I already have people loving that new slogan.
Somebody has already compared it to “Freddy Krueger of Blogging” which I took as a massive compliment. 😀
So it’s likely going to start getting incorporated more and more.
My pleasure, Lindsey.
And sorry I am dropping the ball on my previous offer to do a mini-audit for you; time is… I don’t know where it goes… But I still want to!
Like all the changes you’ve made so far.
I’m glad you like the changes. Still tweaking things here and there (like trying to figure out why my reviews are listed under my products.) But I think it will serve my visitors a whole lot better now. 🙂
And I totally understand the time thing. Absolutely. I think if any entrepreneur doesn’t at least occasionally lose track of time, they’re doing something wrong because they aren’t enjoying life enough. (But I’m weird like that.)
Hi Ana,
Someday you will have one like this:
Lou Barba
@planlablprecher
I’m too old for a one line bio. I live with my wife and two cats in upstate NY.
You mean when I reach the age when it’s OK to be ageist? 🙂
R.H.I.P 🙂
You made me work for this one, Lou; had to look it up…
Hey Ana,
I enjoyed looking through these slides, and wow must that have taken time to put together and align just right, unless I’m missing something lol
My bio has a slight sense of humor while retaining a bio-like format:
“Email marketer. Blogger. Avid coffee drinker. Fitness freak. I play guitar and I think I’m funny.”
It’s due for an update sometime soon, as with my Gravatar. I do link to my homepage, which I will be doing more often when I have a dedicated landing page (on my main domain) for future growth.
Thanks for the post!
-Gabe
I was doing it the hard way until I completely accidentally discovered how to put this deck together in about 30 seconds, Gabe. And thank you!
🙂 very funny, and often witty.
In mine I describe myself as mother of dragons so fellow Game of Thrones Fans recognise me. I often have to explain that part to people… I may need to change it 😉
I actually did look at yours when compiling this Slideshare deck, Sarah; couldn’t figure out the dragon part either. LOL
Love. It. I got inspired and came up with mine:
“I’m a better boss, than an employee. TV producer. Licensed Esthetician. Spa Owner. OK Blogger about to be author. Meet me at the top, the bottom is to crowded.”
Not as funny as yours, Anna, but a start. Thanks for compiling the list.
I like it, Oby; great work!
This bio definitely caught my attention! 🙂
Great post. You’ve inspired me to check out slideshare. Shared it and will post your presentation at Writers on the Move.
Thanks for sharing.
A great way to waste my morning (um… I mean spend my morning researching social media).
Thanks again, must be time for coffee…
It’s always time for coffee and fun, Scott. 🙂
Hi Ana,
I really enjoyed those! Thanks for taking the time to put that together. I wouldn’t have thought to put something funny on there, but you’ve inspired me! I hope mine is funny, I’m usually a lot more funny when I’m not trying!
I like what you did with yours. 🙂
Stacy
Thanks, Stacy; glad you popped in!
Can’t think of one of those that I would NOT follow back. Clearly reflected in some of the bios was the “don’t worry I’m not a social media guru” theme. That should be a good warning right there. But high on my list of people I don’t follow back are those who tell they are MLM experts and the like. But at least it was good enough of them to warn me that they are the “in-your-face” type. Now to review my own bio.
Fun and original.
lol, Richard; at least they are not afraid to be (somewhat) original.
Ana, you are such a role model for cleverness. This post is packed full of fun, promotion actions easy for us to take, interesting research, and great creative writing. Made my day.
Glad you enjoyed it, Darcie!
Nice ones Ana!
I liked the last one the best, which of course was yours…nothing to beat that. 🙂
I agree, shorter is always better and there are great ways you can spice it all up and add things you want provided you get your creative juices flowing.
Thanks for sharing these with us. 🙂
Aaaa, you know how to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, Harleena! 🙂
Ana,
Added your presentation on my blog for wordless wednesday, very fun post! Check it out at http://www.everydaylivingpnw.com.
Thanks! Ed
Thanks, Ed; looks great on your blog!
Great detailed collection Henna.
The most cleaverest Bio was of Mark Schaefer and one at the beginning of the post :D. Smarty!
Deman Lindelof’s is the funniest one.
But great collection. Your effort to compile 100+ list is worth praising.
Thanks, Adil, and my name is Ana. 🙂
Oooooh, 🙂 So sorry. Miss Ana
No problem at all; it was close enough. 🙂