Lessons

Lesson Info

Creating the Best Bio

we're gonna talk about strategies to create the best bio. And this is gonna be fun because we have somebody come up from the audience as well. So these are things that you need to know. And I know that a couple of you already said to me this morning I couldn't fit everything I want to fit in my bio. I didn't realize there was a limit. Well, there is. You only get characters. So you want to really use them waas wisely and have really good keywords as I showed you earlier in your bio. Now you don't have to use all of them. As I said with you know, Surfer magazine is very, you know, to the point of what they dio, I think in one sentence. But if it works for you, you feel like you need to have more call to actions. You can. You can certainly do that. And typically you don't see sentences with punctuation on instagram You You know you Seymour shortcuts like text like style within the bio. Not to say that you can't use punctuation. Zai No, that Holly the the illustrator actually does have p...

unctuation Zen hers. I noticed that this morning on day, some people use emojis in there to just bring it to life or to get the point right on. Especially if you're a traveler. There's an airplane, one that you can use. There's a globe that you can use if you're a photographer. There's different cameras that you can use so you can use the you know, it's really fun to use them if they work for your branding and then you know, just a reference back locally. And she had those puppies on the you know, the different pets and that immediately let's there's not just one. She lined them up. So you clearly know that that's part of her branding and part of what she does. I think this might be a good time. Tohave one of our guests come up and actually do a bio makeover. Fantastic. Who is the lucky guests? Andy said she would come. All right, let's give hot studio Sandy, who I actually met at a travel conference, right? Sandy, as she said earlier, was not on Instagram. Did you sit near me and I said, You gotta be against you and you gave me my name Sandy Lefkowitz, which and then I never did anything else because it was just to know what to do. And then when this happened, it was like, Oh, this my dream come true. Why don't we talk about who you are and what you do? And you know what you think in a concise way you could actually create that perfect bio. Um, and you know, we'll start with you know who you are and what you do and why you do it. Okay, I'm a travel specialist. Um, I do it because travel is my passion. I started traveling with my family at age nine, and it's just always been a part of my life. Um, my first trip to Europe when I right out of college, and I I was ready to be a photography travel photographer. So didn't happen. But now it has. And I've got my business, and I come from a business background. So my my travel thing is helping busy professionals plan those wonderful trips. People don't have time to do all the research in the planning. I'm there. I make the trips of a lifetime. Those wonderful experiences happen easy we make travel easy. So it's great for busy professionals. And where I'm starting to do now is go out into groups, businesses, social clubs, um, alumni associations, community groups. Yeah, you know, because travel is bonding and connecting, it creates memories and bonds for a lifetime. And that's important for businesses to connect to their clients for these groups to connect. Okay. And if you would have come up with some keywords, okay? For what you dio Why don't you name five words? Can you do five? Um, travel specialist connector. Builder of life experiences. Um Ah, time saver. Um, okay. So how many years have you been to travel special? I've been for thistles going on seven years. OK, so you've been doing it for a while so that, you know, so that the amount of time you've been doing it is credible. I think the way that we can do this is if you log in, OK, your account can literally go into your kind, and the audience can actually see the process of how to create a bio and some of the tools that I used to get it lined up and not all continuous within the by because I mean this. This is something on my website. I charged $300 to Dio, which is, like, major value here, and I'm going to show you the behind the scenes of how to do that. It's just gonna take a little bit of back and forth with you. So I find out I'm signing out as insta go. And you some logging out and you're gonna log in. Okay, So logging in to your account, we need to put your user name and your password. Okay, So and this is how you would do it. If you have accounts that your toggle ing back and forth and you're and you're not gonna use a management tool, you literally have to log out from the gear and log back in to your account. And so that's a little cumbersome for some people. A trick t keeping it like fast and easy. Keep it in your note. Keep your password for your instagram in your notes so you can just copy and paste it. And you don't have to type it every time because sometimes you type a character wrong and it's like and you're logging back and forth. So if you do multiple accounts, this is the way to do it. Oh, look who popped up. Okay. Okay. So Okay, so here we are. And this is Sandy's account. So waiting. Wait, was this is the 1st 1? No, no, that was here. Okay, so they're all from here all from here. This is good. I like it. I like what I'm saying. Okay, so she clearly does not have a bio, nor you are l linked to her bio, but her name is there, and we make travel easy. So I am liking that your account is we make travel easy. Um, obviously, we need to add to that bio. And so that's what we're gonna work on right now. And to do that, you click on edit your profile. There's a lot of different things we could do here. You can change the picture, which we're not going to do now. To do that, all you do is click on edit. You can upload a new picture. So anybody out there that does not have a photo on their feet. This is something you want to do. You want to be looking at a logo a face or something. You don't want to have that blank. So the top part is her bio is the name within the bio. And then we make travel easy. It's always gonna be You can't make him capital or lower case. It's all the same in your feet. And if she wanted to break that up, which I'm not going to suggest for you here like I did for Sue be doo. It's that underscore and dot strategy that we talked about earlier. So what I do is I go into my notes, and Sandy and I did talk a little bit earlier so I wouldn't have to be typing this. And you all have toe watch me, like, fumble with my thumbs. Thes were the key. Some of the key things about Sandy that we came up with. We're gonna work through this together, Sandy, and let me know if you're good with all. So I am going to copy. I'm going to select and copy travel specialist and actually try to add it to her user name. I'm not sure we're gonna be able to, because she has a long last name here. Um, hold on I'm going back because I didn't. Okay, so, Sandy, can you Can you come over here? Yes. Height. I don't think we're gonna be able to have your whole name, so let's just type Sandy for now. See, I told you it's the thumbs, okay? And then we're gonna add what I just copied and paste it right here. Okay? So I'm gonna press done just to get that they're So now it says that your travel specialist now to really have that pop a little bit, we could add one of the emojis here, depending on which one you'd like. And I know that there is one of a world or an airplane, so I think you're right. You're right. Yeah, I love it. So isn't this fun? It's No, it's terrific. Okay, so now we have the airplane. So it clearly do you get to the emojis that's in your keyboard. I'm almost positive it's in the bonus. Aziz. One of the things that you get, we teach you how to set that all up on your on your keyboard. So now when people see you in their feet and confirmed this for me in the live audience, When you click on her, you will see her name with that airplane. So we'll bring a little bit more reference to the fact that she's a travel agent and I'm going to go back in and we're gonna actually change the bio. So the bio is where that I is, where it says passionate travel because that's all she has right now. That's not much of a bio, right? Sandy at all. Okay, so this is what we came up with this morning, and we're gonna copy. And this is where I'm telling you in notes, you can space everything the way that you want it. That's the magic copying and pasting it over from notes over to instagram. And that's also how I do a lot of my descriptions in my post, which I will show you later. So I'm going to copy this because they have one. Yeah. Thank you. Where is that are missing from travel. Okay, so we get Yes, I see it. We'll get that in a minute. We were all working through this together, and we're gonna go back over to Instagram when I add the Are to travel. But first, we're gonna change your bio here. We're deleting what you had, and we're pasting what we think you want. And we're thinking that there's no type of okay. And here they okay, so let's just get that there, Okay? Now, when you are in the, um, bio actually adding information, it tells you how much is left, How many characters you have left. So if you wanted relax and live your dreams. So right now you have 58 characters left, so you can add more to this. Or you could add some emojis to this if you wanted to. That would be good to relax and live your dream vacation. I mean, people were looking for words. What? They pick that up? You could have some aspect of vacation. Be another line if you want. I think. And you could also add a hashtag if you came up with one. Okay, But the essence this is gonna be working progress. Yeah, for you right now, it's just letting people know that you know you're traveling. Yeah, and things might not be on the right line for you right now, and you can go back to notes and edit this down a little bit, but I want you to know that you have you have some space here to go in and make some or edits again, back. You know, you might want to add a smiley face and these count for characters. So you need to know that every time you use them, they do comfort characters. But if you're gonna edit this because you don't like it, so say you finished your by and you're like, OK, that's good. But tomorrow you go. I should add this. I wish I had added that you can go back to your edit, your bio, and what I do is I Then select all copy, Go back to my notes. I create a new note and I edit edit. I edit it from the edited version. So I'm not starting over again. And so maybe this time I'm gonna add something different. Or at a key ward, you have 50 four left or 53 If they get so, is there something that you would like to see different or awards that you'd like to add? Or a hashtag that you think would work for you? Nothing's coming to mind. No. In this thinking about in the live audience. Does anyone have any ideas to add the word travel? It's such that that's such a top level word that I wouldn't recommend it because anyone in the travel agent space would be using that. So sandy travel with Sandy, you know, or having her name in that hashtag would make it more unique to her. And so if and when you use a hashtag, you want to think of it as a way for it to be, um, sacred to your brand, it's It's your one with that hashtag and not very many other people, if any, are using it like the one Natalie created. And often the best way to do that is put your initials or your name in the hashtag one of the hash tag strategies that I have for the quotes that we talked about. S B Z quote. If you look up that hashtag every quote that I've ever created on Instagram is under that hashtag and no one else is using it. So instead of the word quote, I put all three of my initials. So if I had a hashtag travels with Sandy, that could be things that I was traveling and maybe also clients, right? Yes, a sandy plan. This trip. Yeah. I again putting your name in it most likely will have it be curated for you so you can decide what you come up with that will work for you. And then again, I just want to, you know, there's so many great fun creative emojis that you can put here. We're gonna you know, I'm gonna Just for fun will put the world in because you're people traveling around the world, you know? So, I mean, I'm just gonna play a little bit here, and you can certainly go back. And so that strategy would be Then, to go back to your account, you would cut this one out. You would take the one that you re created, select all copy and then paste that back in your bio. And then you want to press it done when you're done. So it saved You still have more characters. You'll have more you can do to work on this. But it's clearly better than where you are. The one thing missing is your URL okay if you have one. And so is that something. You have to have a website. I have a website that it's not a personal. Okay, so if so, the solution to the website is direct them to your Twitter feet or to Facebook. I was That's what could I do? I have a Facebook fan page, absolutely. Make travel. And then when you when they land on that facebook fan page, that's where there's a value that you're giving with what you dio. Exactly. And what about Lincoln? Would you do linked? You can trade, but you can decide. You know, you can change where you're linked to at any time. So it all depends on where you're trying to drive traffic. OK? Do you feel like you're getting more clients coming at you from Lincoln, or are you want to give value on Facebook on your Facebook? Ok. Yes, definitely. That's great. All right. So, yeah, I was just gonna say she could probably use the moon and the stars because she's referring to dreams. Very good point. Yeah, she's gonna have fun playing with t sitting here, and then we'll have you. Well, maybe showcase what you come up with at another time. Every great that Yeah, really? E o help me. There is one clarification. Some of our users are wondering what the notes is and how you get to it. It's just an application on the ice. Oh, yeah? So again, IPhone user, I do everything in notes, and it it comes with the phone. I open it up in notes, and these are all my notes. Yes, I have a lot, but I But I left them here to show some examples of posting strategies to So if they're looking for it on their phone, they could just do a search notes. And yes, and then it will come up. Yes, definitely. I think that thinks What do you think? Oh, I'm thrilled. I can't wait to get in and work. So the idea is to come up again. You have 54 characters. You might want to add a custom hashtag. You might want to lay it out a little differently. Yeah, I want to take off. What? I You know what we played with here. But the idea is that you want to build on those keywords. So when people land on your account, it aligns with what your user name is And what the content is that they're seeing in your visual feed. Great, Right? So we actually had a question. Come up here kind of about user names and having that your presence on Instagram, I think now might be a good time to take a look at this. So this question comes from Jules by Triche. She says my user name is jules dot by Triche Because Jules, by Triche all one word is taken. Now the person who has that that user name without the dot is not actually using that account. And I went into her followers, and most of them are people I know. So people have searched for me, then followed that account, but it's not actually mine. Is there any way to fix that? If somebody has your account, and people are mistaking Lee following them rather than you. Wow. So that happened to me. So with Scooby Doo, my store, someone had it and she wasn't using it like she just had the name. And you can't get it unless they deleted. So I feel the pain. So my solution was adding gal. So my old account was called Sue Be doo gal because that was short and I was the super Google. And my husband was Mr CBO, and it all worked. But in this instance, her followers are the same ones. Wow. I think she came up with the best solution, given that it's her name. I know someone that did its me, Rachel Luna. Andi. I worked with her and she took that off and she put TV cause she ended up having a presence on YouTube. So TV at the end was her shift from someone as Rachel Luna. What should I do? And she's like, It's me. Rachel Luna's What? Her solution. Waas. So there is a work around. I think it just comes with failing. You know what's right for you? What is how you're trying to protect yourself? Is that you and someone has your name. I know that people use the underscore between their first and last name or the dots, or they use the underscore before the name like J Marie, which I think is really creative and cool. But there is always a solution, and I think she it sounds like a Jules, I think. OK, Josie, I think she came up with the best solution. And maybe she goes in and leaves comments to the people who are confused and says, Come on over, thistles my account and at mention her account in the comments so that they come back to her that works. If the other account isn't really having anything posted to that, people will get Yeah, okay. Not posting anything. That's not the account. Follow. And that brings up an interesting question. You know how Twitter you can actually have the verified the check mark next to that? That's the authentic users. Is that something that instagram offers as well? Not that I know of. Okay, not that I know of. Yeah, that would be more cases like this. Mostly celebrities I know. For some reason, it seems like glories can figure out how to get what they want. It's probably money, but on instagram. Yeah, I even know some brands that had Teoh Hail Mary had to do Hail Mary snacks. And there are yummy, healthy food line that I love. And that was their solution. Was putting the word snacks with it. So his work arounds, But they're not always what you want, but people will find you if they're looking and or if you can direct them on your other channels to come over. Alrighty. So that was the bio. And now we're going to talk about the call to action. You have one place where you can leave that call to action, which is in your which is your URL. So Sam and Kate designs who are on yesterday I think they do a really great job with their bio as well. I love that they get toe use a cactus because they're from Arizona. So how fortuitous is that? And they figured out that a little spark lease would represent the sequence and the design. There's like a little design palette of circles and squares at the end of the last emojis. Um and so she went and found that square. And that, unfortunately, is the only camera that you can use, which it seems kind of dated. But that's the one that is there. And they let you know that their photographer, they decided to put all their emojis in front instead of at the end because they line up that way. So those emojis actually tell a story. I think if you just look at those. So if you are visual, I think our learner like I am in you thinking Instagrams, this is really a really direct way to showcase what you dio and then in her call to, you know, she's not telling you to go to her etc. Source doesn't really need Teoh. You know, some people say Follow me, do this Click back, come here, their fingers pointed down. But because this is so clean, it's obvious that if you want it the Etsy store is there the only thing that I might change, Although I like that you can see in that URL it's a salmon Kate design. If you wanted to track that bit, Li, the only thing I would change is turning the etc. Earl toe a bit lee, a custom Betley that says Salmon Kate design so that you can track how many people are coming over to that to your Etsy shop from Instagram. But it's really well played, and I love their photos and how they're constantly showcasing those straps in all kinds of creative ways and photo shoots and really trying to bring people over to their account. This one they have over 2300 probably much more now that they were on Creativelive. Because I took this before I came here, but half of that on their photography account, as we saw earlier.