Ep 65. Who your profile is really for: what I see on nearly every Instagram & LinkedIn audit

By now I’ve literally looked at hundreds of Instagram and LinkedIn profiles, and I can usually tell within a couple of minutes why someone’s followers aren’t turning into clients. And the same things keep coming up again and again, so I thought I’d create this episode.

If you’re new here, hello and a very warm welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. This is a podcast for introverts who want to market their thing without changing who you are.

[00:00:26] Your profile is for new people

So when I’m talking about your profile, you can apply it to any platform, right? I’m going to keep it general. But the thing that I want you to come back to is that your profile is for new people. Like, your existing followers already know you. They know what you do, they’ve seen your posts and some of them have probably become clients as well. So they’re not really going to be looking at your profile anymore.

The people who are looking at your profile are the ones who are new to your world. And they might have found you because someone shared one of your posts, or you commented somewhere, or you popped up in their suggested accounts. And when they land on your profile, they know nothing about you, so they’ve got no context at all.

And what I see on so many audits is a profile written for people who already know you. But when a new person lands on it and they can’t work out what you do or who you’re for, they’re just going to go off somewhere else without hitting that follow button, and you’ve got about three seconds to convince them that they’re in the right place.

So as I go through some of these suggestions, I want you to imagine that you’ve never met yourself before. You’ve just landed on your profile. What are you thinking?

[00:01:21] 1. Your profile picture

Let’s start with your profile picture, because that’s the thing that people are going to notice first. Now, I always say, if you are the business, if you are the person delivering the service, please, please, please don’t hide behind a logo, because we want to see your lovely face.

If you’re a product-based business or you’ve got a brand with a team, then by all means have your logo. But for the majority of us, if we are the business, then it makes sense to have your face as a profile. Because it’s social media at the end of the day, we’re on there to be social, and it creates a much better connection and trust when people see a human face behind the profile.

And I don’t need to say this, but make sure your profile picture actually looks like you. We don’t want to do any catfishing over here. The amount of times I’ve arranged to meet people and they look nothing like their profile – it’s awkward when you meet them in real life, because you’re like, “Oh, you look nothing like your profile picture.” We don’t want to be that person. So yeah, make sure you’ve got a recent picture, and we can see your face and you’re looking at the camera, not looking away.

[00:02:11] 2. Your headline

And then your headline. This is the thing I always, always flag. On your LinkedIn or on Instagram, they are searchable. So by that I mean that if anyone’s searching for the thing that’s in your headline, your profile is likely to show up.

For a lot of people, they start out with the headline as just being their name or a job title, or even worse, a title that you’ve just made up. Business Fairy Godmother or Content Queen or Chief Visibility Officer. And look, I get it. They’re fun. Maybe they’re a bit unique. But nobody’s typing Chief Visibility Officer into the search bar when they need help with their marketing. You need to make sure that your headline’s got the keywords, like the actual words your ideal clients are searching for.

And what I normally do with clients if they don’t know what that is – you can literally put your words into the search bar and have a look to see what other people are using and what’s coming up for different phrases, and that will give you an idea of what keywords to use and which ones not to use.

So for example, if you’re a bookkeeper who works with creative businesses, put “bookkeeper for creative businesses”. Or if you help women get back into work after a career break, you can put something like “career coach for women returning to work”, because that’s what people are typing in. Otherwise, you’re missing out on being found by people who are literally looking for what you do.

[00:03:18] 3. Your bio

And then underneath your headline is your bio, or this could be your About section on LinkedIn. The most common thing I see in this area is that it doesn’t really tell me who you work with or what changes for them.

It might tell me what you do or your qualifications, or something lovely about your passion for helping people. But as a new person, I’m trying to work out two things. I want to know, is this for me, and what will be different if I work with you? So we want to be clear over clever here every time.

Stick with who you help and the transformation they get. And you can absolutely put your personality in there. I’m all for that. But if someone has to work hard to understand what you do, most people aren’t going to bother. Remember, you’ve got three seconds to make that first impression. So let’s go for clarity first.

[00:03:59] 4. Your call to action

Then we come to your call to action, which is what do you want them to do next? And this is usually where a lot of profiles just stop. There’s either no call to action at all, or it’s really vague, something like, “DM me for more info,” or, “Get in touch.” But then the other person’s thinking, “Get in touch about what?”

So when someone’s new, they’re not going to work out what the next step is – you need to tell them. Rather than saying, “Get in touch,” or, “DM me,” have a specific call to action, like what’s going to happen when they click on the links. You can have things like grab my free guide, join the waitlist, listen to the podcast.

Instagram will let you put five links in there, but you don’t have to use them all. Obviously the goal of social media is to get people off that and into your own world, so ideally into your email list. So make sure all your links are working and you’ve got a clear call to action to the thing that gets you another step deeper into your world.

[00:04:42] 5. Your recent posts

And then the last thing, which I think is the most important, is that when someone lands on your profile, they’re not just reading your bio, they’re scrolling your recent posts too. And what they’re really asking is, is this place for me?

And nowadays with the algorithm, because it’s based on suggested content and it might show your post to people who it thinks might be interested in you, they’re not necessarily going to be following you, so you don’t know what post they’ve come from. So when they land on your profile, it needs to be really clear to them that, “Oh yeah, this is the place for me, and I’m going to get more of the posts that I’ve just come from.”

But so often posts are all over the place. Like, some people will have a tip or a quote and something about what they ate at the weekend, and no text or headings on the post. So if I’m glancing at it, I don’t really know what the post is about. And unless people are really, really interested, they’re not going to click into each post individually and try and find out what it’s about.

Your posts should feel like a little preview of what it would be like to follow you and also what it would be like to work with you. And when someone scrolls them, you want them to think, “Oh, she really gets me. This is the place for me.” And that’s the feeling that turns a new person into a follower and eventually into a client.

[00:05:38] Your profile check this week

So this week, have a look at your profile as if you’re meeting yourself for the first time. Check your headline, your bio, your call to action, and also your recent posts, and be honest about which ones need a bit of love. For a lot of people, it’s not everything. It’s just one or two tweaks that can make all the difference.

And obviously if you’d love me to do an audit for you and get a second pair of eyes on it, or you’re not sure where to start, then you’re more than welcome to book a Reset Session, and we can look at your profile and all your content together and work out what we need to do. I’ll pop a link to that in the show notes.

Until then, keep showing up with your quiet confidence so you can make a loud impact, and I’ll speak to you soon.