Ep 11. How to build an Instagram profile that gets you found & followed (step-by-step guide)

Ep 11. Build an Instagram profile that gets you found & followed

We’re diving deep into Instagram profile optimization today, and I’m going to show you exactly how to turn your profile into a client magnet so that you can be found and followed by the people who are most likely to work with you.

If you’re new here, hello and a very warm welcome to Quiet Confidence. I’m Anita Popat and if you’re a regular welcome back. I appreciate you.

Today’s gonna be a juicy one because I have audited literally thousands of Instagram profiles and the same things crop up over and over again. So get your pen and paper ready. This is gonna be a good one.

You might be thinking, okay, why do I even need to do this?

The thing is you could create the most amazing content in the world and bring people to your profile. But if people land on your page and don’t really understand what you do or why they should care about your work. They’re gonna bounce and move somewhere else.

And remember in the last episode, I said they have three seconds to make that decision.

So today I’m gonna walk you through the exact process I go through with my clients and it’s designed specifically for those of you who want to be found by the right people so you’re building an audience of people who are likely to buy from you, soon or in the future.

And we’ll also use it as a way to repel those who aren’t gonna be a good fit for us – and that’s a good thing too, because your marketing should attract and repel.

I was gonna start with your bio, but I feel like we need to talk about your profile picture because as an introvert it’s probably very tempting to hide behind a logo.

I would really, really encourage you to put your face as your profile picture, especially if you are the person that’s gonna be delivering the service, because it builds connection straight away.

And when you see the person behind the brand, you’re more likely to connect and engage with the content because you feel like there’s a real person behind it and you want to support them.

So if you haven’t already got a recent picture of yourself where you can see your full face, because remember, especially on mobile, your face becomes really, really tiny. Ideally you want a headshot from the shoulders up so that people can easily recognize who you are.

And remember that photo is not only gonna be on your profile when someone lands on it, but it’ll also show up whenever you share stories, you’ll be at the top of the app when you’re engaging and also if you like and comment on other people’s posts,

 [00:02:00] now that I’ve convinced you to show your face and side note, if that feels really icky, I’d really, really recommend having a brand photo shoot done because then you’ve got a bank of photos that you can reuse over and over again without feeling like you’ve gotta hype yourself up to take a picture of yourself all the time. 

Okay, so now we’ve got the profile picture out the way. Let’s start with your headline, which is the bit that’s in bold right at the top.

So this bit is searchable by Instagram, meaning that if someone searches for whatever you offer in the search bar, your profile will come up as long as you’ve got the keywords in there.

A lot of the time when I’m looking at profiles, they’ll either be a client’s name or they’ll use some really random line that no one’s ever gonna search for. Something like you live your best life or a unicorn in the meadows or, I dunno why I said that, but you get what I mean.

Like no one’s gonna be searching for that. So, yeah. You want to use language that makes you different, but this is the bit where you’ve gotta be a bit more strategic.

So think about the keywords your ideal clients might be searching for, and add them in there so that you can be found.

For example, at the moment, mine’s marketing and content strategy for introverts. So if anyone puts in a combination of any of those words. My profile should come up because I’ve got all of those things in there.

Remember they’ve only got three seconds to make that decision. So when someone lands on your profile, you really gotta make them think, yeah, this is for me. I really trust this person. I’m gonna hit that follow button.

How can you do this?

The way I do this with my clients is have a really clear value statement right at the top.

This isn’t just a line about what it is that you do, it’s more about the transformation that you provide. So for example, if you’re a business coach, you might say, helping perfectionist entrepreneurs build profitable businesses without the burnout.

See how that immediately tells someone, not just what you do, but who you do it for, and the outcome that they can expect. So always lead with the transformation or the desire that your sweet spot client really wants.

And then if you’ve got space, you can add in things like credibility markers. This can be the number of years you’ve been established, how many years of experience you’ve got, if you’ve got any achievements or awards, things like that, just to make people feel that you’re credible.

Or you can add in a [00:04:00] content promise. So this tells people what they can expect if they follow you. Something like, I share real talk about entrepreneurship without the toxic positivity.

If you’re going down this route, it helps people understand what value they’re gonna get from your content. So that’s another angle you can use as well.

The most important thing you need to make sure you have space for before the links is for a call to action. This is a little line explaining what’s gonna happen if they click on those links or something to encourage them to click on the links.

A lot of people will just expect people to click but you’ve gotta direct them to the links in your bio. You could say something like, get my free guide to sustainable productivity, or book your free discovery call.

I normally use an arrow emoji or hand emoji pointing down again to emphasize the fact that I want you to click here.

The key with all of this is to be more specific about who you serve and what transformation you provide. And the more you do that, the more likely it is that the right people are gonna follow you.

And the wrong people will keep scrolling. And that’s what your profile should be doing.

Once you’ve done that, you’ve got the story highlights. At the time of recording, there are those circles underneath your bio, but there has been talks of those circles moving into your main feed.

Depending on when you listen to this, this might or might not be relevant, but whilst you have them, these are quite a powerful for helping you showcase the different areas of your business and almost creating a sales journey for your followers.

You can think of story highlights as different pages on your website. And each highlight should serve a specific purpose and move people deeper into your world.

Some people have a highlight that says, “start here”. Which is specifically for new followers and that normally introduces people into who you are and what you do. And why someone should care about the work you do.

You could do one with tips and advice, or you could have behind the scenes content. So this is the day in the life stuff where you can show you actually doing the work. I might share stuff about my content days or me working on something or me having calls it just gives people an idea of how you work and what you like behind the scenes.

If you’ve got a signature program or a service, you can create a highlight just dedicated to that. This is what I do, and it shares a bit about what the course is, but also loads of [00:06:00] testimonials and answers, common questions, and just behind the scenes of things that have happened in client calls and stuff.

And a really important one is to have client stories or testimonials just to show that you actually work with people and what people are saying about you.

All of these are obviously made up of your stories, so you’d have to share the content to your stories first before you can put them in there.

But if you wanna be strategic about it, you can plan them out and then do the stories accordingly. And every so often remember to go in there and keep them relevant.

(Don’t look at mine right now because this is something I need to do and I’ve probably got really, really old highlights in there, but do as I say, not as I do!)

So to finish this section of, the key to highlights is just to think about the journey you want people to take and use your highlights to guide them through that.

Let’s talk about something that most people completely overlook and that’s looking at your top nine posts. So when someone lands on your profile, they’re probably gonna see the first nine posts on your grid.

A good way to think of these is like your shop window. What are the kind of things that you want them to see when they’re walking by?

This is the kind of posts I would suggest…

People need to see the face behind the brand to build familiarity and trust. So yeah, you’ve got your profile picture, but they still need to see your face and they need to see that they align with your values and your point of view. So they need to get that finally someone who gets it feeling from your profile.

Let me give you some examples of what this can look like in practice.

So let’s say you are a therapist specializing in anxiety. Maybe you’ve got a post about how it feels when people tell you to kind of just think positive when you are really struggling.

Or if you’re a web designer, you might share something about the frustration of like DIY website builders that promised it being really easy, but leave you feeling more confused than when you started.

Or if you’re a financial advisor, you could post about the shame that comes with not having your money figured out by a certain age.

See how micro we’ve gone with the scenarios. The key here is showing that you really understand the internal world of your ideal client. Not just the surface level problems, but the emotions, the frustrations, the late night thoughts, the things that they don’t say out loud.

Everything that we’ve been talking about in the previous episodes.

And I really think that your face should appear [00:08:00] in a lot of these posts because people need to connect with who you are as a person.

It’s not about being that perfectly polished version of yourself. It’s more about more people see your face and hear your point of view, the more familiarity they build with your brand and how you do things.

So as well as sharing content that will help your ideal client share your personal journey with that topic as well. Talk about your journey and maybe like how you struggle with the thing that you help with now as well, 

It just helps show them that you are not someone who’s got all the answers, but you are someone who’s walked the path that they want to be on or are on

And once you think about making sure you’ve got all of this in your top nine posts, every new person that lands on your profile, will be getting a really good first impression of who you are and exactly what you stand for. 

And obviously if you needed help with the messaging side of things, take a look at message lab. Or if you haven’t got the content mixtape yet, that would help you create loads of content from different angles. 

So I talked about your top nine posts, but within Instagram you can also pin up to three posts at the top of your profile. These pinned posts can come from any posts that you’ve shared at any time on your grid.

And you can be really strategic about what you wanna post here, depending on what you’re promoting.

You could have something like an intro about who you are, what services you provide, a freebie to grow your email list. Maybe a popular post that showcases your signature method or your approach or your point of view.

You could have testimonials or client stories to show that you actually deliver on what you say you help with.

Think about the customer journey again and what it is that you’re promoting at that particular time. And pin the posts that you think are gonna be the most valuable, for the people who are landing on your profile for the first time.

And why I like these is that when someone lands on your profile, you’re not relying on them to scroll through your whole feed.

You’re putting the three things that you want them to see first, right in front of them, straight away.

It’s almost like having a welcome sequence that you would have in your emails, but on your profile.

Now I have to talk about Instagram SEO because by the time this comes out, you’ve probably heard about Instagram post coming up on the Google feed now.

And if you haven’t, head over to my IG profile, I’ve got a whole carousel on it.

When I talk about SEO, that’s search engine optimization.

Which means making sure you’re putting in [00:10:00] keywords and phrases that your sweet spot client is likely to search for within your content.

When it comes to Instagram search, there’s loads of different ways to be found. You can be found through your bio by using the keywords in your bio.

You can be found through your content, through the explore feed. Through location using the location tag, or you might be found by someone sharing your post on their stories or whatever.

If your profile isn’t optimized for search, you’re potentially missing out on a huge opportunity to be found by a wider audience. Because Instagram’s constantly trying to understand what your account’s about so it can show you to the right people.

The more Instagram knows about you through the use of these keywords, the more likely it is to show your content to the people that it thinks will find it useful or enjoy it.

So the more clear and consistent you are about your topic and your audience, the more likely you are to show up in the relevant feeds of those people.

This is also why consistency is really, really important, because if you’re constantly posting about different topics, Instagram’s not gonna know what category to put you in.

Whereas if you are always posting about the same thing, let’s say productivity for entrepreneurs, Instagram will start showing you to people who are interested in productivity for entrepreneurs.

Right. We are nearly there. I know this is longer than normal, but hopefully it’s a useful one.

Let’s wrap it up. This is how all of it works together.

Your optimized bio tells people exactly who you are and what you do.

Your top nine posts show them that you really understand their world and that they found their person.

Your SEO optimized captions and text will help the Instagram algorithm understand what your content’s about

and your story highlights will give people a deeper understanding into your world and your expertise.

The good news is that none of this requires you to post every day your chase trends or constantly be on..

It’s about being strategic and intentional with the content that you do create and your profiles there as a shop front that you’re really, really proud of.

The beautiful thing is that once you set this up, it works even though you’re not actively posting.

So your bio is always there introducing you to new people.

Your top nine posts are always gonna be there making that really good first [00:12:00] impression.

And your optimized content’s always gonna be found by people who are searching for what you do.

After listening to this episode, I want you to audit your own bio and have a look to see where it can be improved.

And obviously I do this all day every day, so if you want me to have a look with my Instagram seasoned eyes, then book your audit from the top of the page.

Until then, remember, your Instagram profile is working for you 24 7, so make sure it’s working hard. Speak soon.