Are you a creative? Or an entrepreneur that is creative? Let’s say for example, are you a photographer, a graphic designer, a copywriter, a DJ, or maybe you’re an artist. Whoever you are and whatever you do, if you’d like to make a living from your passion… I may have BIG NEWS FOR YOU!

After 8 years of building a personal brand on social media, and seeing so many entrepreneurs struggle with turning their followers into paying customers, I realized the big disconnect is in HOW you put content together in a way that doesn’t just get attention and provide value, but also turns a casual follower into a lifetime loyal customer.

I’ve decided to teach my exact process on building a personal brand on social media, so more people with important messages (like yourself!) can get out to more people. 

This is going to be a small, intimate group that I’ll be launching in a few weeks. Probably limited to ONLY 20 people.

Click here to join the waitlist, so you are notified as soon as I open my signature program!

What would it feel like to wake up every morning to the realization that the life you are living right now is the one you once only dreamed of?

Image opening your eyes in the morning. You’re waking up on your comfortable bed, in your dream home, living in your dream location. 

You’re smelling your hot coffee and head over to your home office to check in on all of the sales you made while you slept the night before.

You then open your phone and you see a ton of notifications from your dream customers on social media. 

How good would it feel to FINALLY have what most spend their life seeking and never obtaining: a true sense of FREEDOM.

Freedom to live your life on your own terms.

Freedom to do what you’re destined to do.

Freedom to provide for your loved ones. 

Freedom to create new experiences and finally go after the thing that lights your soul on fire. ALL through the power of building YOUR DREAM BUSINESS.

You’re probably thinking: “Haha… that sounds great in your dreams that wouldn’t happen for me. I already tried EVERYTHING to grow my brand online, I’ve tested different platforms, I even bought different courses trying to find the best way to grow my personal brand online. I just don’t know what to say! I don’t know what to post! I just wish my dream customers can finally start finding me online and ACTUALLY INVEST in my business. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t have a lot of followers. This is for people that are lucky, but definitely not me. This is all TOO good to be true.”

Well… the fact that you’re even thinking all of that, might be the reason why you’re still stuck. 

I know this because I was once there, too. 

I used to describe myself as the KING OF OVERTHINKING! I loooooooooved overthinking. I would focus on ALL the reasons why it wouldn’t work out for me. I’d look at everyone on social media who has more than I do and then compared myself to them. I tried EVERYTHING.

But over time, I finally learned what was ACTUALLY holding me back, which I now notice holds back many struggling entrepreneurs too… ready?…

The very conversations that they have with themselves in their own head.

Most struggling entrepreneurs don’t have the BELIEF that matches their business vision. They simply don’t believe it’s possible for them. They don’t feel worthy or “ready”.

But here’s the thing… you will never be ready.

Being “ready” is a choice. Showing up is a choice.

How you show up is a choice. 

See, your brain does not match your beliefs to fit your life but actually matches your LIFE to fit your beliefs.  (Google “confirmation bias” if you don’t believe me).

In other words: if you say you’re not ready to show up for your business. Your brain is going to give you all the reasons, proofs, and recall information why you’re not ready.

Just like my business coach, James Wedmore, says: HOW you see business determines what’s possible for you.

My question to you is: How are you showing up TODAY for your business?

I can’t WAIT to show you what’s possible when you finally take action on your dreams. 

I’m cheering you on.

Questions to ask your 12-month old self:

• What are the beliefs that I had to let go of to achieve my biggest goals?
• How am I showing up today for my business?
• What’s possible for me and my business?
• Who am I surrounding myself with? 
• What are the important things in my life right now?
• What are the important things in my business right now?

3 Things You Can Do Today to Connect with Your Ideal Customer via Instagram

Using relevant, targeted hashtags on your posts and stories is still one of the best ways to get discovered by new audiences on Instagram. And this can translate into more engagement, more followers, and more customers for your business. (Source: Later.com)

Comment and like the latest posts of your latest followers.

How many times have we received new followers but haven’t really engaged with them? There’s a big chance that your ideal customer might be following you and is waiting to engage with you! I encourage you to go to your latest follower’s account and show them some love.

The simplest thing you can do is like and comment on their latest posts. However, if you’d like to take it to another level, you can send them a DM. But, not simply a message… a VOICE NOTE!

I want you to send your latest followers a voice note via DM and THANK them for following you! This is so powerful! Not only it creates a connection, but your followers are going to FEEL special because you gave them a personalized message. And when you make someone FEEL something, you’re changing their lives. Trust me on this.

I like to send videos to my clients! For example, I have a couple that I’m documenting their wedding in November in Aruba and I saw on the bride’s stories that they were listening to Bad Bunny and the groom was singing the song out loud. I’m not gonna lie, Bad Bunny is definitely one of my favorite artists. So, the next week I was working at my desk, listening to Bad Bunny, I took my phone and I thought about this couple! I quickly took my phone and sent them a personalized story me dancing to Bad Bunny’s song. This, of course, opened an opportunity for a conversation and it reminded the couple that I’m thinking about them!

Search for your ideal client via hashtags.

Hashtags are the most effective way to connect with your ideal customer by joining conversations that are happening online. You may have a lot of questions regarding using hashtags, but if you’re interested in a deeper conversation around hashtags, just let me know on Instagram.

The whole idea here is to think about the type of hashtags that your ideal customers are using and where they might be hanging around. Because here’s the thing: when you add hashtags in your caption or comments (it doesn’t really matter where you put it). If you have a public account and add hashtags to a post, the post will be visible on the corresponding hashtag page.

What is a hashtag page? Hashtag pages include public photos and videos that were shared with the corresponding hashtag. You can tap at the top of these pages to see public stories, and scroll down to see public posts.

If your account is set to private, only your approved followers will be able to see posts you’ve shared, and photos and videos from your story won’t appear on hashtag or location pages.

So if you want to use hashtags to reach out to your ideal customers, start thinking about what are the hashtags that our audience is using. I’m going to give some examples of what type of hashtags you can start with, however, one of the questions that many of you are probably are asking yourself is “What if my ideal client’s profile is private?”. 

The real answer is to skip those and look for other accounts that are public. There’s a reason why the account is private, so if you really don’t know them. My advice is to keep moving and find other customers online.

Here are the 3 types of hashtags that you can start:

Community-Based

Community hashtags are so effective when you’re trying to connect with like-minded people around a specific subject. These are great if you know exactly what are the things that keep your ideal customer up at night. Community hashtags are a great way to connect with others, improve the searchability of your post, and attract new followers to your business. 

Here are some examples of Community Hashtags:

1. Hashtags indicating a niche: #photographer #weddingphotographer #personalbrandingphotographer
2. Hashtags for Instagram communities: #photographersofInstagram and #foodiesofinstagram
3. Hashtags using location: #cafeamsterdam #pastryrotterdam #onehappyislandaruba

The idea is for you to think about how are YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMERS using these hashtags. If you are a wedding photographer and you’re going to use #photographersofamsterdam. There’s a big chance that your ideal customer is NOT using this hashtags and you might end up attracting photographers of Amsterdam instead of engaged couples in Amsterdam.

Seasonal Hashtags

The best part of using these types of hashtags is that it also gives some ideas of what you can post, too. For example, the 19th of July was National Ice Cream day. Imagine going to #nationalicecreamday on Instagram and connect with different people just talking about ICE CREAM!

I know it might sound crazy to you. But we have to remember that social media is a place for us to be SOCIAL! So many of people are focusing on making the next sale or on trying to get their followers down a funnel. But when was the last time you actually used Instagram to start conversations, to meet new people and to just have some fun. Let us have some fun as we grow our brand online, friend.

Location-based

Location-based is self-explanatory. However, you want to be strategic on how you use your location-based hashtags. I like to use a mix of country, city, and something special around the city (for example #canalsofamsterdam, or #eiffeltower).

Here are some examples of location-based hashtags:

#denhaag #denhaagtogo #denhaagcity #denhaagfood #denhaagbeach #denhaagfoodie #denhaaghotspot #denhaag_070 #denhaagcentrum #denhaagphotographer #denhaagyoga #thehague #thehaguedaily #thehaguecity #thehague_070 #thehague4you #thehaguefood #thehaguehotspot #thehaguestreetart #thehaguebeach #thehagueuniversity #thehaguesfinest #artthehague

See how I can use The Hague in different ways?

Host a Q&A session on Instagram Live.

Instagram LIVE is the most effective way to build relationships with your audience online. Everything is so real and your audience are not expecting you to be perfect when you’re live on Instagram, they want to see the REAL YOU!

Not only that, but Instagram is the one thing that not a lot of people are doing because they’re scared. They’re afraid for what people are going to say about them, they’re afraid of how they’d look or they’re simply just afraid of showing up for whatever reason.

But, not you! You’re going to do the things that are uncomfortable. 

Because that’s exactly what successful entrepreneurs do. They show up from a place of service, from a place of integrity and from a place of commitment to their success.

Are you committed to yours? I hope you are because BIG things are on the other side of fear.

Now, if you still have the excuse of “I don’t have anyone asking me questions”.

Can you think about 5-9 questions that your ideal customers are probably asking herself and can you host an Instagram live and answer these questions? 

Give me your excuses and I will give you a way for you to make it happen.

See, most of us are looking for all the reasons why we shouldn’t do things instead of focusing on how to make it work.

But if we want to see big changes in our lives we have to start doing things that we haven’t done before. See, what you did got you to this point, what are you doing today DIFFERENTLY, so that you can better further ahead tomorrow? It’s all about taking steps every single day towards your biggest goal. What steps are you going to make today?

If you think this was helpful, I can’t wait to show you what’s possible what you follow your dreams.

If you’re an entrepreneur (or one in the making) I’d like to invite you to my upcoming program.

I’ve decided to teach my exact process on building a personal brand on social media, so more people with important messages (like yourself!) can get out to more people. 

This is going to be a small, intimate group that I’ll be launching in a few weeks. Probably limited to ONLY 20 people.

Click here to join the waitlist, so you are notified as soon as I open my signature program!