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Masbutton2One of the podcasts I like to listen to on a regular basis is Media Artist Secrets by Franklin McMahon. While his podcasts are more focused towards those in the digital creative field like graphic design, web design, photography, and video, the advice in his episodes are useful for anyone who’s does creative stuff for a living. His podcasts are usually about 15 to 30 minutes long and always makes me want to run into my studio yelling, “Charge!”

Well his most recent podcast made cringe a bit, because he talks about skimpy About Me pages…that web page that lets everyone know who you are and what you do. I must admit that when it comes to an “About Me” page for my own websites, I don’t give it as much attention as I should.

If you haven’t been living in a cave in the last couple weeks, you may have heard about the launch of Apple’s new iPhone. You of course may have seen the ads on TV, in magazines, and all of the news reports about people camping out in front of the Apple Store so they could be the first to buy a new iPhone. But what caused all of this frenzy in the first place? In the Media Artist Secrets podcast, Franklin pointed out that while all of the advertising and media attention was great, it may not have captured nearly as much attention if it wasn’t for the very well designed, detailed video tour of the new iPhone where you got to see all of the cool new features, how they worked, and saw the iPhone in action…before you even got to see one firsthand.

So what does this have to do with skimpy “About Me” pages? Franklin McMahon puts it like this. The iPhone video behaved just like the perfect “About Me” page that everyone who has a website should have. If you were curious about the iPhone, the video told you all about it. And then it went a step further…it also made you want to have one yourself. Before you saw the video, you were only curious about the iPhone…after the video, you were so excited that you couldn’t wait to have one or at least touch one. And your “About Me” page should develop the same reaction in your visitors.

How many of us have an “About Me” page that just lists a brief biography and a colorless description of the kind of work we do? How many of use don’t even have an “About Me” page because it’s hard to write one without seeming like we’re bragging? How many people go from curiosity to “I gotta have something from that artist!” after reading your About Me page? I know personally that the “About Me” page is not my favorite thing to write, but I have one because I know that visitors to you website trust you more if they can learn more about you and know that you’re an actual person. But, as Franklin pointed out, your “About Me” page should take it a step further and should transform readers into buyers.

If you want to check out the Media Artist Secrets podcast, visit Franklin McMahon’s blog at http://www.fmstudio.com/2007/07/05/media-artist-secrets-episode-69/ and check out the July 5 show. The entire show is about 35 minutes long, but if you want to skip ahead to the iPhone marketing segment, it starts about 22 minutes into the episode. The beginning of the episode also has some pretty good tips on keeping yourself from getting distracted while you’re working…so you can’t go wrong by listening to the whole thing.