Have you ever looked at your follower count and thought, so why is nobody actually booking?
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 honestly, the same things keep coming up again and again. Usually it’s not your content that’s the problem.
It’s that your profile is talking to the wrong people, so I want to share the social media profile tips I find myself giving on nearly every Instagram and LinkedIn audit.
Your profile isn’t for the people who already know you
Whatever platform you’re on, the thing that I want you to come back to is that your profile is for new people.
The people who already follow you know what you do, have seen your posts, and some of them have probably become clients as well. So those people aren’t really going to be looking at your profile anymore.
The people who are looking at your social media profile are the ones who are new to your world.
Maybe someone shared one of your posts, or you commented somewhere, or you popped up in their suggested accounts.
Someone new landing on your profile knows nothing about you, so there’s no context at all. And what I see on so many audits is a profile written for people who already know you. So when a new person lands on it and can’t work out what you do or who you’re for, it’s very easy to just go off somewhere else without hitting that follow button.
You’ve got about three seconds to convince a new person that this is the right place, so as you read through this, I want you to imagine that you’ve never met yourself before. You’ve just landed on your profile. What are you thinking?
Let people see your lovely face
Let’s start with your profile picture, because that’s the thing people are going to notice first.
Now, I always say, if you are the business (if you’re 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, it makes sense to have your face as your profile picture.
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 social media profile.
Also…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 thinking, “Oh, you look nothing like your profile picture.”
We don’t want to be that person, so make sure you’ve got a recent picture, we can see your face, and you’re looking at the camera.
Nobody’s searching for that
Then we come to your headline, which is the thing I always, always flag.
On LinkedIn and on Instagram profiles, your headline is searchable, and by that I mean that if anyone’s searching for the thing that’s in your headline, your profile is likely to show up.
A lot of people start out with a headline that’s just their name or a job title, or even worse, a title they’ve just made up, like Business Fairy Godmother or Content Queen or Chief Visibility Officer.
I get it. They’re fun, and maybe they’re a bit unique, but nobody who needs help with their marketing is typing “Chief Visibility Officer” into the search bar.
You need to make sure the headline on your social media profile has got the keywords (the actual words) your ideal clients are searching for.
If you’re not sure what those are, you can put your words into the search bar and have a look to see what’s coming up for different phrases, and that will give you an idea of which keywords to use and which ones not to use.
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.
Clear over clever, every time
Underneath your headline is your bio, or this could be your About section on LinkedIn, and the most common thing I see here 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. Is this for me? And what will be different if I work with you?
So stick with who you help and the transformation you bring.
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.
Tell people what to do next
Then we come to your call to action, which is what do you want people to do next?
This is usually where bios/about sections on a lot of social media profiles just stop.
There’s either no call to action, or it’s really vague, something like “DM me for more info” or “Get in touch”, and the other person’s thinking, “Get in touch about what?”
Someone who’s new to you isn’t going to work out what the next step is, so you need to spell it out.
Rather than “Get in touch” or “DM me”, have a specific call to action that says what’s going to happen when someone clicks on the link, like grab my free guide, join the waitlist or listen to the podcast.
The goal of your social media profile is to get people off it and into your own world – ideally onto 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 people another step deeper into your world.
Your recent posts are doing more work than you think
Then the last thing, which I think is the most important, is that when someone lands on your social media profile, it’s not just your bio getting read. Your recent posts get scrolled too, and the real question going on is, is this place for me?
Nowadays, the algorithm is based so much on suggested content (it might show your post to people it thinks might be interested in you, who aren’t necessarily following you) which means you don’t know which post someone’s come from.
So when a new person lands on your profile, it needs to be really clear 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. Some people will have a tip, a quote and something about what they ate at the weekend, with no text or headings on the posts at all.
If I’m glancing at your feed, I don’t really know what each post is about, and unless someone’s really, really interested, they’re not going to click into each post individually and try and find out.
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.
When someone scrolls them, you want the reaction to be, “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.
Try these social media profile tips this week
This week, have a look at your social media profile as if you’re meeting yourself for the first time.
Check your headline, your bio, your call to action and 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.
If you’d love a second pair of eyes on it, or you’re not sure where to start, 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 needs to change.
Or if you’d love ongoing support getting your content to actually bring you clients, in a way that feels doable as an introvert, that’s exactly what we do together in Silent Storm. You can find out more about Silent Storm You can find out more here.
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