A GATE
Village Expert-Tease is a special content-type designed to assist members in self-promotion. It is important that we all present ourselves in a fashion that allows others to appreciate us for who we are. In this new economy, it about providing an Authentic Voice amongst the screaming masses. It is important to stand out in a crowd and an Expert-Tease is the GATE Village approach.
GATE Village provides Content Complete: Expert-Tease to help ensure you have supplied all the expected information.
Published members' Expert-Tease are contained within either a site-wide Outline called Expert-Teasers, or in Outline's of Trusted Neighbours within a Trusted Neighbourhood.
An Expert-Tease is intended as an expression of you or your business, it is not something people will read unless you make it into something they want to read. It doesn't have to be entertaining (though that definitely helps), nor does it have to be targeted to the general public ... it is a promotional device so it should be targeted to the audience you wish to promote yourself to. It does have to be engaging to that audience, else it will sit unread.
Check your spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. Use slang and colloquialisms sparingly, they can be appropriate for blogs and Discussions but rarely for self-promotion purposes. Expert-Tease content is intended as a reflection on you, people should and will prejudge you based on your Expert-Tease, while typos and sloppy writing may not seem important to you, they are important to a lot of other people and nobody is going to think poorly of you for using proper spelling and grammar.
Be creative, and fun; don't take yourself too seriously (but then don't waste an opportunity to let people know of your good points either!).
If you have a lot to say, consider using the Outline features of the Expert-Tease to break up your content into smaller more appealing chunks.
Include pictures, video, and audio to really stand out -- people love to watch short videos, you can say an awful lot in 60 seconds, and few people will spend as much as 60 seconds reading!
Think about the Expert-Tease as your business card ... use it to let people and businesses know who you are and what sort of business relationships you might be interested in.