You wouldn’t build a house without first setting some foundations down, but why do some people start speaking to people online or sharing content without first setting the foundations to their online profiles?
If you start messaging people from your social profiles, but you don’t have a profile image of yourself for example, you won’t get the message responses you want. Without a clear profile image of you, when you send connection requests out to people, they’re unlikely to accept. If your foundations aren’t set up right, your personal brand won’t be as effective.
But that’s ok, because these foundations are easy to correct and will help optimise your personal brands.
First of all, head to your online profiles – You can’t improve what you don’t know. So you need to take a look at your own profiles and do an audit on them.
Do your profiles have:
A clear profile image set:
A profile image doesn’t need to be a professional headshot image, but they do need to show you clearly. Think about a good profile image from your audiences perspective. If someone saw your profile image pop up, can they make out your face clearly? Is the background distracting, taking their eyes away from your face? Is the image clear, or is the photo poor quality, is the lighting so dull you can’t see your face? Does it instantly suggest they could feel comfortable enough to reach out to you, or to accept a connection request? Is it current, or is the photo from 20 years ago and if they met you in person for a coffee a completely different person would show up to who they were expecting? No one wants to meet a professional catfish!
A clear cover photo that tells the world how you help them:
You can create your own cover images and still make them look professional with tools like Canva these days. Your cover image needs to be an extension of your profile image, to add on more instant information to help people get to know why they should follow you. Is your cover photo an image or graphic that ties into your personal brand? Or is your cover photo a random picture of a Ferrari, that you don’t even own! Does your cover image have a short statement of how you help people, or the value you offer your audience, again think why should they follow you? Does your cover image have contact information on it? No one will be able to click on it, but if you have a simple email address, or phone number or website on it that is clearly visible to people, they are more likely to remember it and be able to find it and use it easily.
A short bio about how you help people:
Notice we didn’t say a short bio that tells people your job title and credential letters! If you are speaking to your industry, and your industry would know what that title and credentials mean, then keep it like that. If your target audience won’t have a clue what you do based on your job title, and won’t understand how incredible those credential letters are, then don’t put them in there, or do but include a short explanation afterwards.
Lets take me as an example. My job title means nothing to my ideal audience, what does a Brand Account Manager do? So I’d change my bio to read more like this…
Caz Grant | Brand Account Manager at Quirq | I help people step into the online spotlight and create magnetic personal brands!
An about section that elaborates on how you help people:
When I read people’s about sections it runs generally like an extension of their generic CVs. I am a passionate and enthusiastic individual, I am adaptable and hard working… Bla bla bla. I don’t care how amazing you are, or claim to be, what I want to know is why I should follow you. Why I should spend my valuable scrolling time on you? Tell me what you do for others, what value you’ll share on your feed, how you can help me. While you do this, keep your sentences spread out, make it easy for me to skim read. You can even add emoji’s if thats how you like to roll. Emoji’s to me are an extension of my communication, they allow me to let people know if I was being a bit funny with a 😂, or they enable me to show people I’m excited about what I do and how I help 🤩.
Make sure you add in your contact information:
You want to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to follow or connect with you, to reach out to you, or find your website or further information. Make sure you have all options available for people to learn more information or get in touch with you. Because they’re going to want to, if you’ve set up the rest of your foundations to your personal brand. You don’t want people who are interested in what you have to offer being put off contacting you because they can’t find your email, or to go to find out more about what you do but they can’t see your website link. Make it easy for your followers.
If you don’t have these foundations set then you will be putting people off of following you and then talking to you. The more people you can get following your personal brand, the more people will see your content and what you have to offer. The more people who know who you are and how you can help, and the more approachable your profile is, the more people will start conversations with you. The more conversations you have with people the more opportunities, sales and clients you’ll get!
I know that for us, optimising a profile is relatively easy, it’s what we do, it’s what we’re good at. If you’ve got to the end of this blog and you’re thinking, I still don’t have a clue how I should optimise my profile, or you don’t have the time to optimise it. Then get in touch with us at Quirq, we offer personal brand profile audits and optimisations. Don’t struggle on your own, get help with this today.
