Your profile is the page people land on after one good post makes them curious. It has about three seconds to answer "who is this and should I follow them". Most accounts fail that test, and no amount of good content fixes it afterwards.

Set this up before you publish anything.

Name yourself so you are findable

Use your real name or your business name — whichever people would actually search for. Add what you do beside it where the platform allows a display name separate from the handle: "Marie Dubois · Tax for freelancers" beats "marie_d_92" every time.

Keep the same handle across every platform if you can. Someone who finds you on TikTok and looks for you on LinkedIn should not have to guess.

Write a bio that filters

A good bio repels the wrong people as clearly as it attracts the right ones. Three lines is plenty:

1. Who you help, and with what. The one sentence from Start here.
2. Why you. One credible detail — years doing it, who you have worked with, a result you can stand behind. One. Not a list.
3. What to do next. A link, a booking page, or nothing at all if you have nothing ready. An honest empty line is better than a dead link.

Avoid job titles nobody searches for, and avoid stacking emoji in place of saying something.

Pick a photo people can recognise at 40 pixels

Your face, well lit, filling the frame. Not a logo unless you are a brand rather than a person, and not a group photo. The image will most often be seen the size of a fingernail beside a comment.

Use the same photo everywhere. Recognition compounds; variety does not.

Set the account up as a business or creator account

Every platform has one, and it costs nothing:

• It unlocks the analytics you need for Step 3, which you cannot do without.
• It is required for scheduling tools and for the publishing API to post on your behalf.
• On Instagram specifically, a professional account is required before any third-party tool — including KLAAS — can publish for you at all.

Do this now rather than in three weeks, because switching account types can reset some metrics.

Link the things that already exist

If you have a site, a newsletter or a booking page, link it. If you have none of those, link nothing and add it later. A link-in-bio page listing four things you have not built yet is worse than one clean link, and much worse than none.

Today's mission

• Name, handle and photo consistent across every platform you chose.
• A three-line bio that names who you help.
• Every account switched to business or creator.
• One link, or none.

Step 1 checklist

• Someone landing on your profile can say what you do within three seconds
• Your handle is the same everywhere, or as close as availability allowed
• Analytics are switched on and you can see them
• Nothing in your bio points at something that does not exist

Mistakes to avoid

Writing the bio for your peers. Industry language impresses colleagues and loses clients. Write it for the person with the problem, not for the person who already knows the jargon.

Leaving the account personal. You will hit this wall the first time you try to schedule a post, and by then you will have metrics you would rather not reset.

Filling every field. Empty is fine. Vague is not. A bio with two true lines beats one with five that say nothing.