Bios/Topics in your Alexa Skill are like pages on your website: they feature specific content and are accessible by a one-shot phrase (think of that phrase like a page URL, but hands-free).
Your invocation phrase is like your homepage URL: it enables and/or launches your Skill from the beginning, playing your Welcome or Welcome Back message. Alexa then prompts the user to ask for your About message or first Bio/Topic.
Invocation phrase examples:
- “Alexa, enable [YOUR SKILL NAME].”
- “Alexa, enable Wipfli Financial.”
- “Alexa, open Life’s Pursuit.”
One-shot phrases to Bios/Topics are like individual pages on your site, about people, topics, products, services, or anything you want to market.
Below: watch an Alexa example / demo from Vertex Capital (with a one-shot phrase, “Alexa, ask Vertex Capital to tell me about Michael Baker.”
Bios/Topics are a great way to feature people, products, services, FAQ, tips, or evergreen content. Each slot has two one-shot phrases based on its Name and Title. That way someone could ask to hear about you based on your first name only, your full name, or your job title.
Examples:
- Topic slot: “Alexa, ask Future Proof to tell me about the hosts.”
- Topic slot: “Alexa, ask Mission Advisory Group to tell me about money management.”
- Person slot: “Alexa, ask Plancorp Perspective to tell me about Peter Lazaroff.”
- Person slot: “Alexa, ask Vertex Capital to tell me about the Managing Partner.”
Graphics and audio can be swapped anytime, but Name and Title are hard coded. Ping your account manager to request new slots or changes to Name/Title.
Use these slots to educate people about your and your company, brand, products/services, what’s new, FAQ, or any content you feature on your website. They’re wild cards for whatever information you want accessible hands-free with a single phrase.
What to feature:
Many of our members feature one or two people and then their products or services. Two to three words is the ideal length for a name or title here.
Bios began as a way to feature people, like this WealthVoice bio from Michelle Gordon, CEO of Investably LLC (Quick Link – launch Money Mocha on Alexa):
Featuring Topics – Snappy Kraken Example
Some WealthVoice customers got creative and began using Bios to highlight other content besides people. Example- Snappy Kraken has this Bio where they can share their latest products AKA marketing campaigns. The name and title are set, but the Snappy team can drop new graphics or audio anytime, making it dynamic content:
Name: Today’s Marketing Lesson
Display Name: Marketing Snaps
Title: Bite-Sized Marketing Wisdom
Here are the corresponding one-shot invocation phrases (people can use this to directly access a Bio without first asking Alexa to open the skill):
“Alexa, ask Snappy Kraken to tell me about the newest products.”
“Alexa, ask Snappy Kraken to tell me about marketing campaigns.”
–> Try it out: Click this Snappy Kraken Quick Link to launch on Alexa or your mobile device.
Bio/Topic content that you choose (with recommended image sizes and voice response length):
- Name
- Display Name
- Title
- Headshot (foreground image) – square .png or .jpg, between 512×512 to 1080×1080 pixels
- Background image:
- A) The most popular option is a HEX code solid color (use any of your brand’s non-white primary colors).
- B) Upload a rectangular background image which will be full-screen on all device types (1080×720 pixels, .png or .jpg). Tip: try a free image editor like Canva.
- Response: Either your voice audio (.mp3 or .wav) or TTS (text to speech) – we suggest 3-5 sentences, under 1 minute long spoken.
Assets you can modify:
How Bios/Topics are built and updated:
The Names and Titles that you chose both feed the one-shot phrases. One-shots are great for marketing specific content:
Examples:
- Topic slot: “Alexa, ask Future Proof to tell me about the hosts.”
- Topic slot: “Alexa, ask Mission Advisory Group to tell me about money management.”
- Person style slot: “Alexa, ask Plancorp Perspective to tell me about Peter Lazaroff.”
How to publish or change a Bio/Topic:
To add a new Bio/Topic or change an existing Name and Title, that requires resubmission to Amazon. Pro Plan includes one Bio resubmission per quarter, Premium and Platinum get two. Upload the new assets to the Skill Builder then ping your account manager.
How to use and market Bios/Topics:
Snappy Kraken updates the mp3 and/or graphic of the “newest products” Bio/Topic when they want to promote something new (sometimes once a quarter).
Market it:
They share the one-shot phrase shown below on their website, emails, or social media with copy like the below. You can do this with any Bio/Topic one-shot phrase.
Example marketing copy:
Find out more about our newly released marketing campaigns, hands-free!
Enable: https://alexa-skills.amazon.com/apis/custom/skills/amzn1.ask.skill.27f2b533-b10a-4377-8e97-fa00bb7695e1/launch
Then say, “Alexa, ask Snappy Kraken about the newest products.”
