The Instagram bio is commonly treated as an afterthought—a line or two about your business that you hastily fill out once you first create your account.
In fact, your Instagram bio is a valuable digital real estate that welcomes customers to your profile, conveys key details about your company, and turns profile visitors into followers and followers into customers.
However aside from writing a catchy company description, what else can you do to optimize your profile to take advantage of your Instagram marketing efforts?
What your Instagram bio needs to accomplish
Your Instagram bio provides you with 150 characters and a single external hyperlink to work with. Your username, which you could customize separately from your handle (i.e. @user), provides you another 30 characters.
That might not seem like much when you consider everything your profile should accomplish:
- Highlight important information about your enterprise (your brand name, category, etc.), which you could change in your profile settings
- Provide users with a method to get in touch with you
- Showcase your brand and your personality, matching your voice and style to your website and other social platforms
- Establish your USP, helping your target audience understand what makes your brand worth to them
- Drive valuable actions, like sharing or viewing content material, registering for an event, or heading to your website to make an order
Fortunately, there’s an array of Instagram options you could use alongside your written bio to cover these considerations with a profile that helps users rapidly understand your business, what you’re promoting, and the way they can take further action.
How to create the perfect Instagram bio
Because you only have a limited number of characters at your disposal, there are a handful of objectives it’s essential to prioritize in your bio before you begin optimizing the rest of your profile.
1. Tell profile visitors who you are and why they should care
Nevertheless, you select to express it, the first purpose your bio needs to accomplish is to clarify what your enterprise provides and who you serve.
When new users uncover you on Instagram for the first time, it’s essential rapidly give them the info they need to maintain them. You won’t have their attention for long, so use concise copy that gets your point across rapidly.
For many brands, like Knixwear in the example below, that means explicitly spelling it out for profile visitors in clear and easy terms.
Your bio doesn’t need to rely solely on text either. You may make it stand out by utilizing:
- LingoJam to customize your font (simply copy and paste the text into your bio)
- ☕️fun emojis to add personality
- ↴?directional characters or emojis to draw attention to particular parts of your bio, like a hyperlink to your website
When you don’t have a solid elevator pitch yet for your enterprise, you could use one of these templates to help you get began.
2. Use clickable tags to promote branded hashtags and sister accounts
The hyperlink in your bio isn’t the only factor visitors can click on to learn more about you.
When you have a branded hashtag, include it in your bio to draw clicks and take users to a feed of branded or user-generated content material. Simply type it in your bio as you would any hashtag.
Pura Vida, for example, uses a linked hashtag in their bio to advertise their branded hashtag: #PuraVidaBracelets.
This actively encourages customers to create and share images of themselves wearing their bracelets. Branded hashtags are additionally searchable, which gives a variety of advantages:
- It makes it simpler for Pura Vida to collect this content material so they can reshare it.
- It permits them to make sure customers use suitable hashtag with clear instructions in their bio.
- When users click on the hashtag, they’ll be taken to an entire feed of branded or user-generated content material, which is an enormous win for their brand.
Similarly, you may tag other accounts to direct profile visitors to your other properties. When you have a sub-brand or a partnership you need to highlight, you may mention it in your bio (i.e. “@username”) and it’ll appear in your bio as a hyperlink.
Fashion Nova is a great example of a brand that uses mention tagging well in their bio. They have separate Instagram profiles for their men’s and plus-size sub-brands.
By tagging these accounts in their main profile, they make sure that they send users to the accounts with the content material and merchandise best suited for them.
3. Include calls to action
That includes a call to motion (CTA) in your bio’s copy could be a valuable addition. CTAs significantly improve the chance that users take the action you’re describing because they explain exactly what to do and do it.
There are a number of different actions you may prioritize in your bio—you may even squeeze in a couple of different CTAs—so consider what would be most valuable to your enterprise and make room for that.
Listed below are some approaches you may take with your CTAs:
- Be direct: “Click on our bio hyperlink to buy our newest merchandise.”
- Drive users to share: “Tag #brandedhashtag to be featured”
- Promote a limited time provide: “Shop our Black Friday sale”
- Spotlight a contest: “Share your favorite flavor for an opportunity to win!?”
It doesn’t matter what CTA you use, there are a few greatest practices to always remember:
- Function your highest priority CTA at the end of the bio. People will be more likely to take that action after you’ve established who you’re. Plus, it places your CTA in close proximity to your hyperlink.
- Give clear instructions where needed. If you want to get customers to contribute to your branded hashtag, opt for something like “share your unboxing experience with #opensesame” with a clickable hashtag at the end.
- Begin with the action. Start your CTA with a verb (Begin, Shop, Tag, and so on.) to get straight to the point and eliminate unnecessary words.
Remember that your Instagram bio could be adapted to promote special events like a seasonal sale, contest, or an upcoming trade show. You may always swap in new CTAs and hyperlinks to prioritize limited time offers or events.