How I Improved My Social Media Profiles In 15 Minutes - For The Interested
Social Media

How I Improved My Social Media Profiles In 15 Minutes

Posted on

When was the last time you reviewed your social media profiles?

Not your feeds or your stats, but your actual account profile pages — the ones people look at when they decide whether or not to follow you?

Like most people, I hadn’t reviewed mine in a while so I checked them out this week and chose to make five quick changes to better attract, engage, and convert my target audience into followers, subscribers, and fans.

Here’s what I did and why…

1. I changed my cover images to reflect my brand instead of my branding.

On my For The Interested newsletter Facebook and Twitter profiles I rolled out a new cover image.

While the previous cover images featured the For The Interested logo and tagline, I decided to swap that out for a testimonial quote from one of my readers.

Here’s what it looks like now:

I did this for a couple reasons.

First, I believe your audience is your brand.

Second, the FTI logo is already used as my profile thumbnail and a description of what the newsletter is can be found in my bio, so putting either in the cover image was just repetitive and a missed opportunity.

Using this testimonial quote sends a message about what my newsletter means to my audience and will likely drive more curiosity from potential followers than a logo would.

At least that’s my theory.

2. I added a “Start Here” highlight to my Instagram profile.

On my For The Interested Instagram account, I created a story highlight designed to speak to people who discover my account but may not know what it is.

This highlight allowed me to use several cards to walk people through what I want them to know about For The Interested — that it’s a newsletter they can subscribe to, that I also have a daily social media tips newsletter they can subscribe to, that I have a Newsletter Creators Facebook group they can join, and that I respond to every DM people send me.

I labeled the highlight “Start Here” in order to give people who browse my profile for the first time a clear indicator of where they should click and what I want them to see/understand.

3. I created a new pinned tweet to emphasize engagement instead of promotion.

In the big picture, one-to-one engagement is more valuable than one-to-many promotion.

With that in mind — and partially inspired by this Chris Strubb pinned tweet — I pinned a new tweet to the top of my personal Twitter profile that’s designed to encourage people to connect with me when first browsing my account.

Ideally, it would generate interactions that deliver value to potential followers, so here’s what I came up with as the tweet:

In addition to driving engagement, it also says something about my “personal brand” (even though I hate that term) and why I’m worth following.

It’s too early to tell how it will work out, but I’m optimistic and invite you to reply to it if there’s a way I can provide value to you!

4. I created a Twitter List to feature/attract my target audience.

I’m slightly obsessed with newsletters and my Newsletter Creators Facebook group has become a hub for people who create newsletters to connect with me and each other to share tips, ask questions, etc.

This gave me the idea to create a Newsletter Creators Twitter List to help us keep tabs on what our members share on Twitter.

It’s a public list — you can follow it and/or tweet me to be added to it — and is another great way for me to attract and connect with newsletter creators.

5. I repurposed my most successful content from a year ago.

This one may not technically be a profile change, but the content you share is one of the first things people see on your profile so I’ll allow it.

(One of the perks of being the one who writes the blog post is I also get to be the one who decides what’s “allowed” in it!)

I’ve written before about how to maximize the value of your social media content and this tactic is as simple a way as you’ll find.

I scrolled through my old Instagram posts and looked at what I posted in March of 2018 and 2017. Then, I pulled a couple of the best performing posts from those time periods and plan to re-post them on a few of my different social accounts in the coming days.

I know the posts will work well because what works once…always works again.

I kicked it off with this post which is off to a great start this second time around.

One more thing before you go…

If you found this post helpful, you’ll probably also dig my social media tips emails.

Go here to check them out.

Thanks!