Wednesday, February 10, 2010

About ME Pages: Write them Properly

Kris Dunn with the HR Capitalist has a great post today about the correct and incorrect way to fill out those "about me" pages on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.

Whether you have a bio on your Firm's site, are a sole practitioner and have to tell people who you are, or simply have a bio via twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, you've got choices to make regarding how you position yourself.

You have three choices when it comes to an "About" page and how you position yourself:

1. Take a "YAY ME" approach. Say you're the expert even if you're not or at the risk of seeming plastic to the world around you. LOTS of companies and people doing this.

2. Tell the world who you are. Tell the world who you are not. Be confident in the fact that by not trying to be all things to all people, you'll be more attractive to the people who are really looking for what you have to offer. This is similar to the Seth Godin "tribes" approach, and it's clearly the authentic way to go.

3. Be scared. You think the Brill Street approach sucks, but you just don't have the moxie required to tell the world who you are/aren't.

I've got news for you. #2 is the only way to go. It builds trust and authenticity, but it requires you to tell the world what you think sucks. Take a stand. People like it and the people who don't won't be nearly as active in being critical as you think they will be. I reworked my LinkedIn bio and came up with this:

"Who am I? That's an easy question - I'm a VP of HR type who has led HR practices in Fortune 500s and venture capital-held startups. I work for a living, and believe if you aren't an active recruiter/talent agent as an HR pro (regardless of title or position), you're overhead. I cringe when peer HR types act like administration is job #1 and allow it to dominate their professional identities. I cringe again if they make no attempt to be an active recruiter.

BOOM! If you like that description, you'll like me. It's that simple.

I'm also among the most transparent HR pros you can find, and here's why. I care so much about the art of HR that I've started two blogs (www.hrcapitalist.com and www.fistfuloftalent.com) with the goal of building a community I could learn from. I've been putting my thoughts down every business day for 3 years.

That means what you see is what you get. I can't hide, and if I ever pulled the blogs down, Google would probably haunt me forever anyway."

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