My name is Tinu. And there’s nothing I hate more than writing my own bio.

What’s a bio, you say?

It’s that blurb about all the wonderful things you’ve done in your professional life. But it’s not just one blurb. It’s usually more like three.

One will be made short enough for Twitter (160 characters), another long enough for a guest post (between a clever sentence or a crisp paragraph), and in some cases, the length of an entire web page (perhaps the about page of your blog, or in my case, the front page of one of my sites.)

And why do I hate writing it? Well, despite all the joking about how I think I’m the center of the universe, I may be just a smidgen more humble than that in real life.

Plus, how do you write about yourself in a way that is inviting, without sounding like some kind of jerk?

I’m not the only one who hates writing a bio. Tabitha Hale and her friends hate it too.

I do have a secret though, a sneaky little trick I have been using for years to cheat on writing my bio. One you can use too, in three easy steps.

We’ll come back to that in a minute. First, what do bios have to do with website traffic?

I’ll tell you what. Sooner or later you’ll need them to help you get or keep traffic.

When getting traffic from a guest post, as a featured author or thought leader, or even in some article marketing projects, your bio is what will make people want to click through to your site and get to know you better.

Bios can even help you keep traffic. Sometimes, you’ll get a person like me to your site, someone who reads every word they can find out about you before they even THINK about buying something, until something jumps out and makes them believe you are 1- legit and 2- safe.

For me, it comes down to some connective language, somewhere on their site. I like to leave little easter eggs for people who read my sites sometimes, things like “Mmm, chicken”, for those of you who remember my original blog.

And I love it when people leave little gems for me, like upside down text in the footer, or a really cute bio.

Yes, tragically I am a sucker for a good bio, though I have lots of trouble creating one.

Yes, me, a writer by birth, trade and some would even say talent, I cannot for the life of me, write a proper bio for whatever given occasion is in front of me.

So, I cheat.

Remember the three step process I was going to tell you about?

Here it is.

1. Find someone who thinks you are the bees knees, who you just adore, who also hates writing bios.
2. Write each other’s bios.
3. Trade and edit as needed.

Yep, that’s how I did it. Way back when Rodney Rumfordand I owned a little outfit together, he wrote my blurb and I wrote his.  ( Rodney co-founded TweetPhoto and a bunch of other great startups.)

Can’t remember what it was for, but I have based almost every bio I’ve ever written since on that one. Except my Twitter bio.

That is the most funky fresh made up word you’ve ever read in your life.

Don’t lie.

Anywheres… here’s the situation. I am now on day two of picking apart Facebook Ads, between pauses on a couple of very important projects. I’m not quite ready to share all my thoughts on it in a coherent way, and when I do, I’d like to be different. So, here are a few links to some other people talking about Facebook Ads, from articles I’ve read by people I respect.

It all started when Rodney Rumford made me really jealous with this early Facebook coverage once again. He was even quoted in an article about the Facebook Ads announcement, along with two other forward thinking individuals whose names you might now. Of course, that’s what his site is all about, Facebook coverage from a Facebook Apps and Developer perspective.

His was also the first Business I became a “fan” of in Facebook, following a quick read of his Facebook Pages coverage.

Next, have Jim Hedger‘s post about it as a Three Part Ad System. I found this article last, via Sphinn, and it goes over FB Beacons, FB Pages, and FB Social Ads.

Before that, I wandered across Jeff Pulver‘s article in my news over at Facebook. It looks like there’s a similar article on his site, and gives direct coverage of Zuckerberg’s appearance at the Foursquare conference where Facebook Ads was one of the topics discussed.

I would say that Jeremiah Owyang is providing the most in-depth coverage.

On his site, there’s a video conversation between him and Robert Scoble. In an earlier post he goes beyond the Facebook news, into fansumerism and in a later post wraps with his testing of Social Ads and Facebook pages.

Remind me to ask him when he sleeps…

See the last post for a link to his Facebook page. I found it interesting that he picked the variety of Business page that is for Celebrities or Public Figures. That or the Writer/Artist designation is the one I’d choose, unless/until Facebook changes the unfriendly wording of the link to becoming a fan, which is “Add a Product”.

Ew. Why can’t it say “Join Fan Base”?

What does Jeremiah’s page say? Well, that’d be giving it away, now wouldn’t it?

The next article I saw is built for those of us who an informative but brief executive overview, or rolling updates that include links to things like a step by step guide to creating your Facebook Business page. The Web Community Forum gives us the first step of how to create a Facebook page for our businesses, wherein Jason Preston asks us three important questions that we should consider before making the page.

I saw some other good stuff about Facebook, but you can pick most of them up in Techmeme.

Go on, read them all. It’s Friday. We’ll call it “research”.