The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 94: Making Your IG Visible

Today I am going to be diving into the importance of Instagram and how it plays a vital role in the success of your business. I will be discussing how you should make sure your instagram is easy to find and how to make sure your customers stay on your page and explore. All of this and so much more!

Making Your IG Visible

Today, we're digging into Instagram and the importance of Instagram when it comes to your online business. For many of us, Instagram is a big platform where our ideal clients are hanging out at, where they're spending their time. And so we want to make sure that we are making our Instagram visible to them and easy to find as well. And we also want them to stick around instead of swiping away. So I'm so excited to dig into this topic with you today. I've been chatting with so many of you in the DMs and and my Facebook group community and so many of us don't take the time to make our Instagram visible.

So I want to make sure that I can give you all of the actions and steps that you can take today to really make sure it's visible, because it's going to be so many little small tweaks here and there that you can make on your page to make sure that people who want to be there actually sticking around and taking action, applying for your programs, going for your content, and sending you DMs and reaching out to you. That is the goal. We want to make it visible.

Your Virtual Business Card

So your Instagram is basically your business card for your business and essentially it's part of your resumé for your business as well. So if you think about it, in an H.R. office setting, for example, when the H.R. team or maybe the management team (and I know this because when I was in the “corporate world” as a chemical engineer, I was hiring my own team members to come on to my team. And I hosted interviews. I was going through resumes. And I can tell you from my own experience and by spending time with H.R.), that’s usually when we're going through resumés for a job position, the H.R. team, the management team, whoever is hiring, they're spending on average less than five seconds per resumé, skimming through looking for certain credentials, looking for certain points, things that they're looking for specifically.

The same exact thing goes for your Instagram page. When people are clicking, they are spending less than five seconds on your page before they decide whether they're going to stay and go through your content or swipe away. Less than five seconds. Like, how crazy is that? That's not much time. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi. Boom. Either they're still there or they've swiped away. So we want to make it visible for them and we want it to be so easy for them to make that decision to stay or swipe away. Totally okay if they swipe away. However, if they are an ideal client, we want to try and get them to stick around. So if they don't stay, they're not going to see all of the incredible content that you've spent so long creating.

If they don't stay, they're not going to see your call to actions on your page or in your content to actually apply for your program or purchase your course or a product that you have. If they don't stick around, if they swipe away, they're not going to see your latest IGTV or your latest live that you've put out there to build touch points with them and create a like, know, trust factor.

So I really want to dig in today on what's important on your Instagram profile. A lot of this goes hand in hand with your Facebook profile page as well, or business page. You can take a lot of these points and definitely utilize them for your Facebook profile page or Facebook business page. All of those things.

Your Instagram Name

So let's first start with: what's important? Let's start with your name. I know it sounds silly, but let's start with your name. Let me ask you this question: Is it easy for people to understand who you are? Is your user name a ton of random letters and numbers?

Does it actually identify with you, with your brand, with you as a person? Or does it give you the flexibility in your business to pivot, if you want to, down the road? Because it's very possible that you may pivot and may want to do something a little different. Six months from now, twelve months from now. Can you imagine what it would be like if you had a username now and maybe had a Website domain the same name as your username- and maybe even everything else, a podcast name and just all of the things- and then you want to be able to make a tiny pivot but you can't because it doesn't make sense to the name anymore?

So we want to make sure we're using something that makes sense. So, for example, back in 2014, I was an only health and fitness coach. So for those of you that are a little newer to my podcast, huge welcome! So excited to have you here! I know there's so many new listeners. I'm so excited. I was an online health and fitness coach back in 2014 way back in the day. I started that business while I was full time at my chemical engineering career and then scaled that business past six figures and then transitioned to business coaching a little over two years ago. Anyways, back to what I was saying. For example, back then, my Instagram username was Melissa Linn Fit, which totally made sense for when I was in that niche. However, it didn't really make sense for me to still have that name now since I transitioned to business coaching over two years ago, which is why we moved our name to The Melissa Lin. Now we have the Web site and The Melissa Lin. Everything's associated with Melissa Lin. And I don't see this happening anytime soon, however; if i wanted to transition down the road away from business coaching for some reason then I can still keep The Melissa Lin. It still would make sense because I'm the brand.

So if you are in the online coaching or even a service based business in the online space, it's pretty safe for you to include your name in your user name because people are going to come to you, right? They're going to be attracted to your personality, your vibe, your energy. They're going to be attracted to your offers. They're gonna be attracted to your business because of who you are as a person. Keep that in mind. You are a big part of your business. You are your brand. You really are. You're what sells. So many people vibe with you because of the type of person you are. So that's what we got to keep in mind, right? Who you are as a brand is you. We made that clear.

And you want your potential clients to be able to identify with your username because it's gonna be one of the first things they see if they're scrolling through. Maybe they're looking at someone else's page and looking through the different followers. They see your name and they'll see a tiny little picture. However, it'll be pretty tiny.

So you want to make sure the username makes sense and you want to make sure that the sub name that you have makes sense as well. So either your name and add in something that has to do with what you do. So, for example, we've got our user name "The Melissa Linn" and then underneath the sub name it says "business coach". So you can see very easily who I am and what I do.

The Profile Picture

So the next thing, after you've got your name figured out, the next thing that they're going to see is your profile picture. So even if they're scrolling through someone else's profile, they may see your name in a teeny tiny little blurb with your picture. However, when they actually come to your page, they're really going to see your picture.

And I want you to ask yourself: Is it actually a clear picture of you? Is it a picture that makes sense for you and your brand? Can they see your face? Is it bright enough? I remember I was looking through and chatting with some people and a few of the women I was talking to in DMs- I could barely see their face in their pictures because it was kind of a dark angle in their house. There was not much natural lighting. It was just a very dark picture. And we want to be able to see you because you are your brand. So we want to be able to see you in your picture. So I'd recommend at least a three quarters body shot or closer if you can, right? Just your head if you want to.

The Instagram profile pictures, they do look tiny when people are looking and searching for you. Even when you are searching and scrolling the Instagram app, and at the top you can see the Instagram stories. Your picture is there and that's what they see. They don't see your name. They see your picture. So you want it to be something they can identify with pretty quickly and they can also see you very easily. So we want to make sure that your picture is easy to spot out and that it fits you. It makes sense. They can see your face and build a connection with you very easily.

Your Instagram Biography

So now that we've got that, we've got your username. We've got your subtitle. And we also have your profile picture. Let's move on to the next big part of your profile: your Instagram bio. This is the bread and the butter. This is usually the last thing that people see in those five seconds before they make that decision to stay and hang out or swipe away.

So we, as business owners, could make it so easy. The easier, the better. We get to make it so easy for people to see exactly what you do, who you help, and how you help them. We call this the “I Help” Sentence. I've got a formula and I have it in some past podcast episodes or send me a DM and I can send you the exact formula for this. Feel free. Send me a DM to @themelissalin and I can give that to you. But you want to let them know very quickly what you do, who you help, and how you help them.

And let's go to my Instagram for a second. I'm going to pull mine up really quick. Got my phone in front of me.Okay, here we go. So you can see Melissa Lin and business coach. There's a picture of me. And you can also see very quickly and very easily what I do, who I help, and what I help them do. So I help online coaches start, build, and scale to six figures. And then I also have some other things in my profile; like I'm the host of this amazing podcast. And then I also have some other things like call to actions and my website and things like that, which we will move into in just a minute.

So this is one of the last things that people look at. So what do you do? Who do you help? How do you help them? Let them know what your area of expertise is in. We are very limited to how many characters we can have in our Instagram bio. So we want to be very intentional about what we're putting there as well. What are you an expert in? What is your area of expertise in? Make sure that somewhere in your bio includes something that's going to help you stand out a little bit. Then, a huge thing to do, we get to make it so easy for people so that they know exactly what to do next. Where can they take action? We get to tell them and show them. So please have and please share a call to action in your Instagram bio. Have it there, make space for it. You have to get rid of something else in your bio, you're gonna need to do that. You want to have a call to action and let them know why they should follow it. So, for example, if you are a business coach, if you have your calendar link or an application form in your link in your bio, you can have a call to action of like a little down hand or a down arrow "book your call to the scale the 5K months" or "book your call to X, Y, Z." Whatever that result is, we want to share that call to action. Why they should follow it. What”s the result, a tangible result, that they're going to receive once they take that action. It's giving them direction in what to do and why they should do it. So I'm looking at my profile right now. And what I've got is I've got a little down hand pointing down to the link, right? We're making it very easy for people to know where to go and what to touch next. So hand down. And it says "resources start and scale your business." So that’s free resources. I have the podcast, my Facebook group community, and my programs all ready for them once they click that link. So we get to add that call to action.

Your Instagram Highlights

And then one of the last things that I want you to also think about are your Instagram highlights. This is something that we get to really make personal. Yes, you do want to have some kind of Instagram highlight about client results and your program. You could hide some Instagram highlights about you! Show some of you and your highlights so that people can start to learn about who you are. Here we go again. I'm going to go through mine as an example.

So, going through the first few and they're not in any specific order. It's based off of when it was added to it last. So I have my mini training right here. The first thing right now when I'm recording this is at the end of June. Right now, end of June, "mini training". That's my first Instagram highlight. And then I have a "start here" button as well. A button. It's a highlight. I'm going to call it a button. I have a "start here" button. And when you click that, you actually get to know me and my story. You see some pictures of me when I was in my engineering job and how I left my engineering job and how I was able to scale my business. So you really get to know my story and then I have one button, an Instagram highlight, about my academy. I have a press, stuff about my beautiful trip to Bali last year. Absolutely incredible. And then my podcast. And then I also have a personal one. And yes, we're working on adding an entire pearl button because she's so key to me and also my brand.

She's a huge part of the business. But I have a personal button and Instagram highlight and pearls part of this. I have tons of things about my boyfriend there. Some travel things. I'll have to go through and double check, but big things I've done in the past year or two. I got certified to sail a boat last year! Took a few weekends to learn how to do that and trained for that. A lot of things about how I ski.

I want people to see the different signs of me and just things that I do outside of my business so that they can relate to me at a human level. I'm not just business, business, business and my cat, Pearl. I'm so much more than just my business. And I want people to relate to that. And I also want to give others the permission slip to be more than just their business. Go live your life. Go have fun. Go travel. You know, maybe once COVID settles down, we're kind of hitting this new spike right now at the end of June in most states. But, we get to add some personal items to your Instagram highlights, along with business items as well.

So definitely have a mixture of both. So I want to give you just a few more tips. We went through a few things already to make your Instagram visible when it comes to your name, your profile picture, things you can do in your bio, call to action, different links you can have. Your Instagram highlights, or I like to call them buttons. You may not agree with me. I don't know. For some reason I feel like I'm touching a button. I kind of miss that way back in the day. I've got my cell phone in front of me right now and I'm just looking at my screen. I'm a big Apple person. I am and have been for many, many, many years. So, again, I kind of miss having an actual button on my phone, like the last time we had a button, I guess, besides the home or the side button. The volume and power and things like that. Last time we had one is that old home button where you could actually push it to go home. Now we have face recognition, which is so cool, like how technology has just progressed. But anyways, I just pretend it is a button. Instagram highlight buttons. So those are just a few things.

Hashtags & Captions

Here's a few more tips for you: I want you to also spend some time on your hashtags and then your captions as well. So we all know you can have 30 hashtags and please utilize them. If you want to be more visible to your ideal clients, utilize hashtags. Please utilize hashtags and use some that makes sense. So what would your ideal client be searching for? What are some of the hashtags they use? What are some hashtags that maybe some of the other influencers in your industry use as well? And please use hashtags that aren't overpopulated in the Explorer page. Because our goal is yes, for people to come to your page, and then also new people who aren't necessarily in your community yet. They find you through items such as hashtags and the Explorer page. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pretend that you have your Instagram Open. If you go to the whole search bar area (the search button) and start to search different hashtags, you can see that there are some that are more populated than others.

So, for example, I'm going to go ahead and search for #business coach. And when I do this, I see that this tag has two point seven million posts under this hashtag. So that is a hugely populated hashtag. I want to use a mixture of some bigger ones, then also some kind of middle populated and then lower population as well. We want a good mixture so that you can be seen on the Explorer page more and more. However, if you're using a hashtag that only has like 10 or 15 other posts, how likely is it that other people are actually searching for that hashtag? So we want to make sure this makes sense. Which is why I recommend splitting your 30 hashtags throughout some pretty populated ones, middle populated, and then also lower populated as well. So the #business coach has got two point seven million posts. And the cool thing on Instagram is when you search hashtags, it gives you other options. And it's a numerical order for how many posts it is or how populated it is. So if I scroll down, the next one underneath business coach is business coach forums, which has four and a half thousand posts.

Business coaches, so plural, is sixty two thousand. Let's see, I'm going down a little bit more. Business coaching for women has forty two thousand. So you see how there's a huge difference between the 2.7 million and forty thousand. So definitely do that.

Let's do another example. Pull up and search #life coach. So I want you to pull up your Instagram and do this as well. If you don't have your hashtags figured out, do this with me as well. Some searching for #life coach. This has eight million posts. #life coaching has 2.6 million. That's incredible that so many people are posting with this hashtag. However, it can be very difficult for you to be shown on the Explorer page with that many people posting with that hashtag. So if we go down a bit more, let's see life coaching for women- one hundred and sixty three thousand posts, life coaching happiness- sixty four thousand, life coaching one on one- thirty thousand. So you can see as you go down a little bit more, there's not as many posts for that. And so you will be more visible on the Explorer page or there's more of a chance that you'll be shown on that Explorer page if you definitely want. Because that's how people are going to find you on Instagram that aren't necessarily in your community yet. So that's the first thing. And the second thing I want to just touch on is your captions and how you really want to be intentional about your content and your captions you're putting out there. Please don't just post a post. Please be intentional because your content is your body of work. And what's really cool is with social media, your content literally sells for you when you're not out there actively promoting or actively selling anything to anyone, your content is. Because it's always there. People can always come see it. New people who find you on the Explorer page come, go through your content, they go through the five seconds, and decide to stay on your page. Yay! Maybe they go through an Instagram highlight or two and see your adorable cat and then also see your incredible client wins and they start to go through your content and relate to it and connect to it and then want to then purchase one of your programs.

So, your content is how you really get people to get ready to buy from you when you ask. Most people will not buy simply because you ask the first time you put something out there. Why would they? They don't know you yet. They haven't created that relationship with you yet. It's almost like, let's paint this picture, it's almost like a car salesman. I love using that as examples. And it comes to sales and selling because how many of us have had such horrific experiences at the car dealership? But anyways, let's just say it's like a car salesman coming to your front door and opening it and telling you that you need this car that they have.

He hasn't gained your trust. Like you have no idea who this person is. You don't like them. You don't even know them. They haven't shown you why you need to buy it, why it's worth it. So you've got no reference at all of what his expertise level is because they literally just showed up at your front door. And that is why your content is so important. Because it helps to build that expertise and that level of authority and the like, know, trust factor with your audience. So please spend some time. And if you want some help or some guidance on creating captions, hop in my caption capsule, It's thirty five bucks. And if you use the code podcast you save five dollars. And I've got over one hundred and eighty different headlines to use over ,60 different calls to actions to use. Just so much. How to write a post. Other little training in there, too. All for 30 bucks if you use a podcast code. And hey, it's a business expense as well. So why not?

So that is how you can start to take action today, with those steps, to really be intentional about your Instagram so that you can be more visible and be seen by more people and start to convert more people. It's very few things, just those few things. If you make some of those changes or if you haven't done all of those things yet, you will start to see a few more people coming into your audience and more people applying to work with you. Start to make these little changes. Let me know how they are. I would love to hear your biggest takeaways. I would love to see and hear about the things that you didn't have before versus the things you do have now and how helpful this podcast episode was. And we can't wait to see you in the next episode.

Topics we cover include:

Why Instagram is important for your business
How to sculpt your instagram
How to get your ideal client’s attention
Tips to draw more attention to your profile

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(4:04) Why Instagram?

(5:10) Your Business’ virtual resume

(7:49) Your Page Name

(11:50) Your Instagram Profile Picture

(13:33) Creating your Instagram bio

(17:30) Creating your Instagram Highlights

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