ST. LOUIS, MO – MAY 11, 2022 – We live in the era of search. We are searching online all the time, looking everything and everyone up. That fundamental reality is the number one reason why you should have a video profile of yourself.

You need to make sure a video story you own shows up when someone searches for you online.

If you do an online search for a person, you are likely to get their LinkedIn profile or a written profile on a company website. I expect you may get some photos or a hodgepodge of other stuff, including potentially video.

You might also get blog post or newspaper article. Try it. I urge you to google yourself right now.

Before writing this post, I googled myself.

The first thing that popped up was my professional bio from the StorySMART website and then my LinkedIn Profile. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased. That is the point of the exercise of having a professional bio on line.

We live in the era of search. We google everything and everyone. If I’m meeting someone for coffee or lunch - - and we have never met in person before – I will google them so I have a clue about who I’m looking for. Admit it. You do too.

The biggest surprises in my search of myself were that my Cardinals professional bio is still active. Having left the team nearly four years ago, I am surprised it is still up on their site.

The other big surprise. Evidently there is a mixed martial artist named Ron Waterman.

I am missing a video bio. I don’t have one. I should, but don’t. At some point, I’ll hire one of our reporters to tell my story, but for now our focus is on helping others. I promise to get to mine at some point, but every dollar I have goes into other priorities with my business.

Do as I say, not as I do as my mom used to tell me.

I can live with you reading about me rather than seeing me on screen. The bottom line is you must put a professional biography online. You should own your own narrative. You should have a say in what people see when they google you.

I decided to check to see what shows up when I search some of the clients we helped with a professional profile video. Each of these clients received a professional video profile that runs between 2 ½ minutes and five minutes, as well as a written blog post of at least 350 words. Our general routine is to provide the story to the client, as well as post to our companion website that is a placeholder until we launch our OTT app.

Now here is why you should consider having a professional video profile.

When you google our client Doctor Arturo Taca Jr. and you will see the video and blog post we did for him as one of the top results.

Same with Patricia Kennedy of INSynergy.

The top result for Hannah Byers was our video bio.

Rick Flanagan’s video is also front page.

Google Gregg Sofer Husch Blackwell. You guessed it. Top result, his professional bio on their website. Video is on the front page.

Google and search in general is one of the reasons we encourage our professional clients to consider creating an online bio and doing a video profile.

When I was with the Cardinals, I was almost a broken record with our executive team about allowing us to help them write a bio to put on the website. I knew reporters and the public would be searching for them online. I wanted to ensure they – and we as an organization – had a role in what showed up online.

I’d like to tell you I ended up batting a thousand convincing everyone to do a bio, but alas I will have to settle for hall of fame numbers. If you go to the Cardinals website and navigate to “Front Office” button (in the Roster drop down on the main page), you can see who has bios.

In order to control your narrative or define your personal brand you must invest telling your story. The basic approach is a written biography. You can also add photos if you want.

The best approach is a video. Ultimately the choice is yours.

Let us know when you are ready to have your story told professionally on screen.