Create a (free) social media web page about you with about.me
A social media hub page is a virtual business card: a single web page with a brief bio (or link thereto) and links to your websites, blog, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. This allows you to provide a single link in your email signature, your (paper) business card, in an article byline, and anywhere else your name appears in print or online. A single link is clean and professional looking, one reason why virtual business cards are becoming more well loved.
I've experimented with uncommon options. Recently, I set up an tab with about.me. My page was simple to set up and make to order. I uploaded a background image (me, looking fierce) but did not include a bio. As a replacement for, I listed my professional roles as attorney, writer, and industrialist.
If you click on the doo-hickey at the top of the page, it will take you to a random assortment of other about.me pages, many of which are quite creative. Fantastic for thoughts.
About.me is integrated with Klout, a new social media "rating" service that tells you how influential you are in the online world. It also tells you who you influence and who influences you. I'm not sure how useful this is but it's fascinating to watch my klout index increase.
I also set up an tab with flavors.me, which allowed me to make an nearly identical page. They have a paid version ($20/yr.) with added customization features. Attorney Dan Gold set up a page on flavors.me and took advantage of those upgraded features.
About.me is free; I couldn't find a paid version. I'd like to see more options for configuring pages, like the paid version of Flavors.me seems to provide, but all in all, this is a fantastic way to quickly set up a virtual business card. Give it (or flavors.me) a try. Send me a link to your page and I'll feature it in a future blog post.