How to Professionalise your personal Facebook profile and attract ideal clients
Chanelle Segerius-Bruce
Whether you realise it or not, whatever you post on social media already forms your personal brand. Facebook is a great platform for making the most of attraction marketing. If you’re authentic, intentional, and have the right motivation you’ll attract your ideal client.
Some of my biggest clients have come via Facebook and me being me. I met one of my clients on Periscope and we connected on Facebook. We then had a call and that’s how our relationship started. It progressed to her flying us to the Seychelles to do her entire brand creation. We built everything from the inside out and filmed all her videos for her group program. Two years later, she flew us to Bali and Lombok to do a rebrand.
Creating authentic relationships and content that speaks to your ideal client over a long period of time helps people get to know the real you and associate you with your niche.
Another example is the (new) corporate client I signed from the US. This was through someone that I’d been connected with on social media for about 10 years. We always kept in touch. She held a top position in a corporate company and pitched me to the vice president. It helped that I am featured in Forbes, Thrive Global, Stylist, and Entrepreneur so that added brand kudos.
Let’s look at some of the ways to professionalize your personal Facebook profile.
Your profile picture
- Your profile picture needs to be one of yourself, not your cat or your kid!
- It should be one that is clear and well-lit.
- You should preferably hire a professional photographer but if this isn’t possible in the short term, it can be a selfie with your phone. These days, most smartphones have good cameras and are able to take good photos.
- Connect with your audience and make sure the photo is “eyes-to-camera”.
- If you’re a business owner, I recommend having a personal branding shoot every 6 months.
Your cover image
- Your banner also needs to be a professional image and relevant. Mine has the name of my Facebook group on it and a photo of me (professionally taken in Bali), so it represents my lifestyle. It also brings in some of my brand elements, rattan, and palm leaves.
- If you’re launching or during a launch, update the banner and add the name of your program / what you’re launching, and cart open / close dates.
- You can also add copy to your Facebook profile cover image that could include details about your program and a call-to-action link to your opt-in page, sales page, or whatever you’re currently promoting.
- If you’ve been featured in any magazines or well-known websites, you can add that as social proof on your cover. This adds a “know, like, and trust” factor.
Your about section:
Your Intro
This tells the world what you do – almost like your elevator pitch. Don’t add any website or group links in here, because it’s not clickable. You can add a few emojis by copying and pasting from Get Emoji.
Your information section
Facebook displays a lot of irrelevant things by default e.g. where you went to high school, your birthday, etc. Make sure you edit that and only show what is relevant and/or current.
The business you want to market and grow right now should be front and centre. Not every single business you have ever owned. Think about what you do, your ideal client right now and what you want to be known for. Remember a confused mind does not buy. This is the section where you can add your website / link to your group / your opt-in.
When you interact in other groups, ensure that your Facebook profile is professionalised and your about section is complete. When someone hovers over your name, this information is what they’ll see first.
Feature Images
Facebook gives you the option to add 5 feature photos. Tip: only add one. This way, it’ll be enlarged and won’t get “lost” among a gallery of other images. Add a branded graphic here and once uploaded, open the graphic to add a description and call-to-action (link). This way, you can funnel people from your Facebook page to join your Facebook group or wherever else you want to funnel them. Eg: sign up for your freebie.
Your posts:
Do an audit of the last 5 – 20 posts and check that what you’re posting reflects who you are and what you do. If it isn’t clear, you are missing out on potential clients. You don’t need to be spamming your timeline with sales, branded graphics, and links. Here, you can show your ideal clients what it’s like to work with you and pique their interest without being too “salesy”.
- Add snippets about what you do behind the scenes in your business. Be creative with how you share. Take people on the journey with you. Eg: if you’re a web designer, show off a new website that you’re launching or working on.
- Every now and then, break the ice with a bit of humour that’s relevant to your brand.
- Share a link to your latest blog post with a short extract in the caption. If they want to read more they’ll click on the link.
- Talk about your experience that makes you the best person to help your ideal client.
- Invite your Facebook friends to watch your live videos so that you can funnel them from your personal profile into your Facebook group. Make sure to give value to your viewers!
Facebook Friends
Building your network
You may have many people sending you friend requests and you’re not sure whether you should accept. Go ahead, just be intentional about it! Facebook is offering you a free community to network with and you can have up to 5000 friends. Think about who you want to work or collaborate with. You can add 5 – 10 new friends per day and build up your network.
Accept requests or send requests to people who you genuinely are interested in building a connection with. Tip: Message your new friend once you have connected to say hi and introduce yourself. Don’t use this opportunity to pitch your offer. Never friend request people and immediately ask them to like your business page or join your group or buy something from you. People are easily annoyed by this.
Friends Lists
If you’re nervous about posting / sharing your story / “talking shop” on your personal profile because you’re worried about a cousin or aunt’s opinion you can separate your family from the rest of your facebook friends and choose who to show your posts to.
You can also keep a list of people who are in your locality. Or you can keep people in one list who are in one industry, eg. photographers.
When you share content, you can choose to share content with “everyone except x list”. It will then become a default post setting.
When I add a new Facebook friend, I immediately add them to a list.
If you have to go back and do it, the easiest way is to put your family (aunties, cousins etc) in a list and just hide the content from them.
Facebook Productivity
“Marie Kondo your newsfeed”
If you’re feeling bombarded, overwhelmed and not able to create meaningful content, then you need to look at what content you are consuming.
Go through all the pages you’ve liked that no longer resonate with you. Unlike and unfollow people who you hardly or never interact with. Only follow pages that you want to stay connected with.
If you don’t want to unfriend anyone, you can unfollow them or anyone who you feel is not engaging with you. Clean out your business page and group too and make room for more of your ideal clients.
By doing this, your algorithm and engagement will improve. If you want to build a buying audience, having people who aren’t engaging negatively affects your algorithm.
Limit the chances of being distracted
If you find yourself spending too much time on Facebook when you are at your desk, use the Facebook News Feed eradicator. It’s a Chrome Browser extension that replaces your news feed with an inspiring quote.
Be purposeful when using Facebook
Plan your writing time: Write your posts in a Google document. Once you are done, plan and schedule your Facebook posts.
Plan your engagement time: Either choose a fixed amount of time to engage immediately after posting or close Facebook and decide what time and for how long you will come back to engage.
If you’re an expert in your field and you want to price, package, and launch your signature course online, come and join my Group Build your Brand Online. Once you have improved your Facebook Profile, share it with us in the group!
Chanelle Segerius-Bruce
Chanelle is a business coach/consultant and personal branding specialist with over 20 years of experience. She's been featured in Forbes, Thrive Global, Stylist Magazine and COACH Magazine. She runs a global training business and works with women helping them launch, grow and scale their online businesses and create a freedom-based life through entrepreneurship.