From Stranger to Superfan: How to Optimize Your Instagram for New Followers

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Discover Proven Instagram Strategies to Attract, Engage, and Convert New Followers into Loyal Superfans

Is your Instagram profile giving new followers the cold shoulder? Time to roll out the red carpet!

In this quick-fire episode of Lionhearted CEO, I'm sharing a game-changing strategy to transform your Instagram grid from 'meh' to magnetic for new followers.

Here's what you'll discover:

The crucial mistake most businesses make with their Instagram grid (and how to fix it)

Why your bio isn't enough to hook new followers (and what you need to do instead)

The 9-post challenge: A simple strategy to make your profile irresistible to newcomers

How to create content that speaks directly to cold audiences (without alienating your current followers)

Quick tips to make your reels and live videos more accessible to first-time viewers

Plus, I'm sharing my top tips for welcoming new followers into your community and turning them into superfans.

Whether you're just starting out on Instagram or looking to level up your social media game, this episode is packed with actionable strategies you can implement today.

Ready to turn your Instagram profile into a superfan-generating machine? Tune in now and let's optimise your social media for explosive growth!

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

If you found value in this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and mention this episode. It would mean the world to us!

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. [00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to a lion hearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the lion hearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist, and firm believer that chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. [00:00:26] Join me every Tuesday and Thursday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom. [00:00:45] Okay, let's jump in. Hello and welcome so every Thursday I'm going to be releasing a short episode. Now, the goal is to make these episodes 10 minutes long. However, as a former boss once told me, uh, Sophie, [00:01:00] you are clear, but you're not concise. So I'm not going to hold myself to a maximum of 10 minutes, but just know that my intention for these episodes is for them to be short, quick, actionable episodes. [00:01:10] So these are going to be every single week. They're going to be on all sorts of different marketing topics. This week, we're going to jump straight into something you can do on your social media. Now, the reason why I'm starting here is it's because it's such a foundational piece so that even before you're running ads, this is a great thing to start doing. [00:01:28] If you're running ads, this can be incredibly helpful for increasing Uh, what happens once someone has found you. So increasing your conversions, the building of your community, like creating those super fans. So it's incredibly helpful no matter if you're running ads or not ads, which is why I wanted to start with it. [00:01:44] And in my raw framework, which you're going to hear loads more about. So it's R O A R. The O is optimize. Now, On Tuesday's episode, I did break down those four steps in more detail, so take a listen back if you haven't already, and I will be doing a [00:02:00] lot more content about this, but in Optimize, what we are really looking at is how can you optimize your systems and your social media to make sure that when people come into your world, they start that journey superfan, okay, and that's what we really want, that community of superfans, of people that love what you do and are excited to work with you. [00:02:18] So this week I'm actually going to start with a little challenge. So to give you a little bit of background, something that I say to most of my clients is if I was to go onto your Instagram, I'm going to talk about Instagram. This applies to any social media channel. If I'm going to go onto your Instagram, or if I'm going to go onto your Facebook I'm going to scroll back through your posts. [00:02:38] Okay. Let's just take the last nine posts on Instagram. That's obviously your grid that you can see at the top. So If I looked at those as someone who has never heard of you before, so I don't know what you do, I don't know who you are, I literally know nothing, but I've come to your profile page. Now, the first thing you're probably going to say is, well, yes, I know, I need to optimize my [00:03:00] bio. [00:03:00] You know this, I know this, we all know this. Optimizing the bio is super key, okay, to make sure that when people find you, they know what you do. But. I would like to challenge that that is not the only thing you need to do, because those first nine posts are incredibly important when someone comes across your profile for the first time. [00:03:20] Now, I know as well, there's a lot of advice out there, like, don't worry about it being a pretty grid. Like most people see your posts in the feed, they never see your grid as one. And whilst that's not untrue. For people who are already in your world. So when someone's following you, yeah, they will mostly see your post in their feed, rather than on the grid. [00:03:40] However, if someone sees an ad and thinks, Oh, that's interesting. I'm just going to have a look at this person or download your lead magnet, get your first email, right? They're going to go over to your profile. The likelihood is they're going to go over to your profile. Okay. And they're going to see your latest nine posts. [00:03:57] And what I want you to think about is [00:04:00] take a step back, have a look at those nine posts. If someone was to come onto my profile and see those nine posts, would they know who, who I am, what I do, who I help? And would they feel like they've come home? Would they think, Oh my God. Like this person gets it. [00:04:19] They get me, they get my problem, they get it. I want to consume this content. Because what I do not want you to rely on, and what a lot of people rely on, is these new people who've never heard of you, okay, taking the time out of their day to consume your content before they decide. If it's for them or not, and I'm just to be really blunt, most people don't, okay, if I go onto someone's profile, and this is one of my pet hates, you can probably hear it. [00:04:47] If I go on, and there are just a load of posts with reels with no front covers, so I've got no idea what the reel is. involves unless I click on it, watch it and read the caption, um, lives where all I can see [00:05:00] is, um, half of the top of the top image and half of the bottom image, you know, that like screenshot version on the, on the Instagram grid where someone's gone live. [00:05:08] I've got no idea what that lives about. I've got no idea who it's with. I've got no idea if it's relevant to me or not. I might have a picture, a really nice picture of me, of, you know, someone at the beach. I've got no idea if that, uh, post is relevant to me or not. If you're posting content like this, You are posting it for your warm audience. [00:05:28] Okay. You are posting it for people that you know, are likely to click on the picture of you at the beach because they know you, they know who you are. They're interested. They're like, Oh, she's at the beach. Let me see what she's got to say. Um, Oh, she's done a live with so and so who she's had on, you know, her Instagram stories before. [00:05:45] That's exciting. That'll be really good. Oh, she's done a real, I'm going to watch her and see what she's got to say. Okay. You are making your content for people who already know you, if that's what you're doing. Okay. Um, what I want you to think about, and that's not an issue in itself. Like you [00:06:00] absolutely have to make content for people who are already in your world, like 100%. [00:06:04] But you also have to create content for people who are not in your world, who are coming across you and want to become part of your community. But you have to open the door and let them in. You can't rely on them, uh, knocking on, what is the analogy for this? Sophie, uh, knock on the door and let themselves in, uh, find the key to let themselves in. [00:06:25] Some go along the lines of that kind of analogy. Okay. You cannot put the owners. on people, other people. Okay. They've just come into your world. They're short on time. You need to take the onus on like grabbing them and getting them in. So how can we do this safely? I hear you cry. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to commit to yourself that you are always going to put a front cover on your reel, that you are going to put a cover on any lives you do, that you post to your grid. [00:06:51] And that when you do make these covers, um, that you make the writing legible. Um, so I want to be able to skim your top nine posts, and I want to read the writing on the front covers. [00:07:00] That is the first thing, okay? Um, irrespective of your messaging, irrespective of what it says, I want to be able to see those nine posts, and I want to know exactly what is in them, and whether then I can make a judgment on whether I want to spend my time reading any of them, okay? [00:07:13] So that's the first Step in opening the door to your new, to these cold people who've never heard of you before. The second is when you go to make your content, and again, it doesn't have to be all of it, but I'd like, let's say at least half of it every week or every month. I want you to think, okay, if I was someone who was totally new, what would be a lovely way to welcome them into my community? [00:07:35] What would be a way to help them feel like they're part of the gang and that I want them here rather than feeling like they're kind of coming in somewhere. They're not really part of the gang. They don't really feel welcome. So they're going to move on. How are we going to do that? Well, in things like, so let's say I'm doing a talk to camera reel, like, uh, I would maybe start with the hook. [00:07:54] And then I might say something like, if we haven't met before, I'm Sophie and I help people use Facebook ads to [00:08:00] grow an audience of superfans, and I'm so excited you're here and I'm just going to carry on with the reel. Okay. So we're just introducing ourselves. We're saying, hi, I'm Sophie. This is who I am. [00:08:08] Okay. You can also do this in written form as well. So you could have it in a caption, you could have it within a carousel. Um, you can introduce yourself multiple times, okay? You don't just have to have one intro post that's pinned to the top of your grid, which is great, but we need more than that, okay? [00:08:26] We need to be constantly introducing ourselves, reminding people who we are, why we're there. Another great tip is to say things in your content. Like if this was helpful, make sure you're following me because I share loads more of great stuff like this. Okay. Don't assume that everyone that is consuming your content is already following you. [00:08:44] And you might feel like you sound like a bit of an idiot because if anything, like me, you just assume that That the content you're creating is for people that are already following you. I just want to encourage you to take a step out of that, um, and just say, someone could be watching this real, this [00:09:00] video, this live reading this post, and they might've just found the post. [00:09:03] They might've come to the post from an ad. They might be browsing your grid. They might, it might've come up in their feed. Okay. We need to make sure that we are using our content to welcome people into our community. Okay. And don't be afraid to ask people to follow you. If someone already follows you, they're going to be like, Oh, good stuff for me. [00:09:21] I'm already following. Like, they're not going to be like, Oh, I can't believe she's asking me to follow her when I already follow. Like, they're not going to think that. Okay. So I really want you to get into that habit of creating content that is accessible. For people who have never come across you before. [00:09:37] Now we haven't gone into the content of what these, like the messaging of these, but just take a step back and think what would be really helpful if someone had not come across me before, what content themes by messaging could I actually create that would be really helpful for them because yes, an update on my holiday. [00:09:52] It's really nice. Yes. Uh, it's really interesting. Uh, I love working, you know, my co working space I work at, but can we, let's also [00:10:00] think about how do I help people? How can I show new people quite quickly? How I help people, what process do I use to work with people? What are the outcomes? Uh, but really think about when you're thinking about your content. [00:10:12] want you to think about content that connects with people who are finding you for the first time. So your challenge is to first of all audit your top nine. Okay. I want you to let me know like on Instagram, like DM me, let me know, like of the nine posts on your grid, how many of them do you think actually talk to your cold audience? [00:10:31] Okay. Um, and then I want you to make a commitment that over the next nine posts that you post, at least half of those are going to speak to this cold audience. Okay. And 100 percent of them are going to have a cover image of some kind that I can read. Okay. So that's my challenge for you today. I want you to go away and do that. [00:10:52] Okay. And next week come back and I will share another actionable, strategic, slightly ranty tip. Okay. [00:11:00] I want you to make sure that you are actually implementing these because these are the kind of small things that can make a massive difference on how your business grows. And that kind of community of super fans that we are really, really looking to create. [00:11:13] Okay. Oh, my gosh. I am very excited to start doing these episodes and I look forward to speaking to you next week. Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck a chord with you, I'd be over the moon if you could take a moment to rate, subscribe and leave a review. Your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community. [00:11:38] Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.