Bridget Willard

Your Speaker Bio Should Be Friendly

The purpose of a speaker bio is to appeal to both the conference members who choose your talk pitch and the attendees to attend. Be friendly so that your session will be well attended.

When you are friendly, you are approachable. It means you smile, use humor, talk about yourself, and are open to conversations — online and off.

Table of Contents hide
1 Be Friendly Online
2 Use Friendly Language
3 WordCamp US Workshop
4 Tweets from Attendees

Be Friendly Online

It really is that simple. If you look down at your phone all the time, people won’t walk up to you. It’s the same online. You have to give them permission to talk to you.

This means talking about your hobbies. People always ask me how personal they should be on Twitter. I always say as much as you are comfortable with.

This allows people to engage in small talk with you. If you golf, they can ask you about your favorite course. If you have a dog, they can ask about the breed.

Use Friendly Language

Using friendly body language shows you’re open to talk. The same principle applies to your speaker bio. When you include language in your speaker bio that shows your personality, you give people permission to approach you — online and off. WordCamp organizers look for speakers who will make their event a positive one.

WordCamp US Workshop

It’s good to talk about your skills and qualifications. Be sure to also include your personality. I enjoyed giving this workshop at WordCamp US this year.

You can see my slides here. My formula for writing friendly speaker bios is there. It’s like a Mad Lib. Have fun with it.

You can use this format for your website or for LinkedIn. Feel free to change it to the first person. You can keep or leave out the speaking section. Most of my peers speak or should.

Friendly Means Having Personality

Tweets from Attendees

Bridget Willard