Your Instagram bio is your business card, portfolio, and website home page all wrapped up into one.
You have just seconds to leave a great first impression, so you need to focus on your Instagram bio and make sure it’s fully-equipped to convert Instagram visitors into followers.
Ready to learn what it takes to create a killer Instagram bio in 2019? Check out our top tips below:
Tip #1: Use Your Instagram Bio to Attract Your Ideal Audience
A good Instagram bio explains what your business is and what you do in just a couple of sentences.
While you might only get 150 characters to play around with in your bio, that doesn’t mean it can’t get you more followers.
And not just any followers, with a fine-tuned bio, you can target your ideal audience so any new visitors will be able to quickly understand what you and your business are all about. And if they like what they see, they’re more likely to tap the follow button!
Check out how sustainable footwear brand Allbirds sums up their brand mission in one succinct line in their bio:
It’s also a good idea to focus your Instagram bio copy on how you help or inspire your ideal followers — making it more about them than it is about you.
By writing Instagram bio copy that speaks directly to your target audience, you’ll attract more quality followers who are aligned with your brand and more likely to become customers!
Your Instagram bio is the perfect place to make your brand or business stand out for a particular skill, profession, hobby, or interest — it’s a place to add a little bit of personality alongside your business pitch.
A great example of this is The Wing’s Instagram bio. The Wing keeps its bio copy direct and to the point, so even if you’re a first time visitor, you’d know within moments that their account is for a co-working space for women.
But The Wing isn’t trying to attract every female on Instagram — only those who identify with their “advancement of women through community” credo. This is important, because with just a few lines of copy, The Wing is able to niche down to a very specific type of female audience, one that relates to its strong company culture and core values.
Think about how you can use the 150 characters in your Instagram bio to write copy that attracts prospective clients and customers — people who are the most likely to press the follow button!
Need help writing your Instagram bio? Download our free Instagram bio worksheet to help you get creative and come up with a good Instagram bio:
Tip #2: Use the Name Field to Share Your Top Targeted Keywords
Did you know that the Name field in your bio is completely separate to your username?
That means you can customize the name field in your Instagram bio, without changing your username or handle.
Check out how Elise Darma has used this name field to reveal more about her business:
Choosing to just have your username in this field is a lost opportunity because the words you include in your name field are actually searchable on Instagram!
So if we use Elise’s bio as an example, if someone searched “Instagram Marketing” on Instagram, they’d probably find Elise’s page top of the results list:
So using your Name field in your bio for targeted keywords is a much better strategy for your brand if you want to be discovered and get more followers.
Try to think about the keywords that your followers are searching for on Instagram — maybe it’s your business niche or the products you sell. Once you find the right keywords, put them into your name field.
For instance, the account conscious.kin wouldn’t show up when a user searches for natural skincare products — that’s why they included “Clean Beauty. Natural Skincare” in their name field:
While trying to decide how to brand yourself on Instagram, it’s important to consider what your visitors are looking for and how you can present them with the most information in the least amount of time.
So once you have your keywords locked in, it’s time to get them into your Instagram bio Name field!
Tip #3: Tag Related Accounts & Share Your Brand’s Hashtag in Your Instagram Bio
Thanks to an Instagram update last year, any profile usernames or hashtags that you add into your Instagram bio will become clickable links!
When you include a “#” or “@” in your bio, it automatically becomes a clickable link that will lead visitors to either a hashtag or another profile.
That means you can use your personal Instagram bio to promote your Instagram business profile, or share where you work by mentioning your company’s Instagram username!
See how Moment have used their bio to shout-out to their other Instagram profiles @momentshop and @momenttravel, and shared their branded hashtag #shotonmoment.
If you post user-generated content on your feed, your Instagram bio is another great spot to promote the branded hashtag you use to collect these posts.
Check out how brands like Kapten & Son, STA Travel and Benefit Cosmetics all ask their followers to tag their posts with their branded hashtags to be featured on their accounts:
Note: Placing hashtags in your bio doesn’t make your profile searchable within those hashtags, but adding your company’s branded hashtag into your Instagram bio is a great way to share your community and invite others to participate in it as well.
Tip #4: Drive Traffic & Make More Sales Using Linkin.bio by Later
You only get one link in your Instagram bio that can lead to an external website, so you need to be strategic about how you use it.
Unless you’re committed to just linking to your home page (hint: we don’t recommend this as a good user experience for your followers!) you’ll have to regularly update your bio to include a new URL every time you want to drive traffic to a different page on your site.
But now there’s a tool that can make your whole feed clickable, so you’ll never miss the chance to drive your followers to your website — enter Linkin.bio by Later!
Instead of having to constantly switch up the URL and call-to-action in your Instagram bio to align with your most recent post, Linkin.bio creates a clickable landing page for all of your Instagram posts.
Using Linkin.bio makes it extremely easy to redirect visitors to the specific products or pages that you reference in your individual posts, without ever having to update the URL in your Instagram bio!
And the best news, it’s FREE!
Your followers (and future customers) browse your Instagram feed like a magazine or catalog, and they could even be interested in an article or product that was posted about a couple of weeks ago.
But it can be frustrating to try and find that specific blog post or product if the link in your Instagram bio doesn’t match. But with Linkin.bio, it makes it easy for your followers to find your content and products online!
And if you wanted to make your Linkin.bio feed a shoppable experience for your followers, you can upgrade to connect your Shopify account with Later!
Linkin.bio helps you turn the link in your Instagram bio into more visits, signups, conversions, and revenue for your business.
And all it takes is a few taps to add the specific URL you want to link to when you’re scheduling your post with Later:
Lifestyle publisher and Later customer, WELL+GOOD shared:
“Linkin.bio by Later has been a game-changer for our Instagram strategy and social strategy as a whole, since we can now promote multiple articles a day. Our Instagram traffic has increased 179% YoY largely due to implementing Linkin.bio!”
If you want to use the link in your Instagram bio to drive traffic to different URLs, like blog posts, campaign landing pages, or specific product pages, you can make the entire experience much simpler by using Linkin.bio.
Ready to level-up your Instagram bio with Linkin.bio by Later? Sign up today, it’s free!
Tip #5: Add a Call-To-Action for the Link in Your Instagram Bio
The second part of your Instagram bio link should be used as a call-to-action (CTA) in your copy.
Since Instagram only gives you one link on your profile, it’s a good idea to use that last line to tell users what’s in it for them if they click your link.
For example, if you’re offering a new promo, resource, or limited time offer, make sure to let your profile visitors know.
Check out how The Economist leaves a short and simple CTA at the end of their bio to invite viewers to read more:
Tip: Use both text and emojis to drive eyes to your link in your bio!
You only have 150 characters, so don’t be afraid to use emojis to save space and add some personality to your profile!
Check out how Verve Coffee Roasters have created a cute CTA with capitalization and a simple emoji:
Or London-based yoga studio Union Station uses emojis to highlight their upcoming workshops and retreats:
However you decide to style up your call-to-action, it’s a great asset to your bio if you’re looking to drive even more traffic to your site.
Tip #6: Add Your Contact Details to Your Instagram Bio
If you want your Instagram profile to be a one-stop-shop for new visitors, you’ll want to make it easy for them to contact you or find your location!
One of the best ways to do that is to switch to an Instagram business profile.
In addition to creating promoted posts and ads, adding links to Instagram Stories, and having access to Instagram’s built-in analytics, switching to an Instagram business profile also gives you the ability to add key contact information directly to your Instagram bio!
Brands like Ohh Deer, Away, and Well+Good have all set up contact information for their brands and business:
Once you’ve made the switch to an Instagram business profile, you can choose to include your email address, phone number, and physical address on your profile without having to use up any character space in your bio.
For traditional brick and mortar stores, like the San Fran-based Anomie, having a clickable link to your store location can be a real help for your followers and improve footfall through your doors:
Once these are set up, a profile visitor can easily click on any of these links in your Instagram bio and reach out to you directly via email or a phone call, or be given directions to your location.
Tip #7: Choose the Perfect Instagram Profile Picture
While picking an Instagram profile picture might seem like a super-simple task, you want to make sure you’re absolutely nailing the shot so you always leave a great first impression!
If you’re a business on Instagram, you might want to consider using your logo (or a shortened version of your logo) as your profile picture. This can help with long-term brand recognition and will make sure that everyone who lands on your Instagram page is quickly introduced to your logo and banding!
Brands like Lululemon, Hostel World, and Casper have all opted for their logo as their profile pic:
On the other hand, if your business is personal — for example you could be a photographer, influencer or life coach — you may want to use a headshot as your Instagram profile picture.
Why? Because if you’re selling “you” on Instagram, you want to make sure that you’re introducing yourself to visitors right off the bat!
Check out how Amy Shamblen, Quigley Goode, and Quinn Tempest all lead with an on-brand headshot that matches their overall Instagram aesthetic:
But if you really want to make your Instagram profile pic stand out, check out how YouTuber and video producer Christianne Risman has added an extra outline to her profile pic:
By adding this circle of pink around her profile picture, Christianne’s image stands out from the crowd when she has a new Instagram story, and makes her profile a little bolder, brighter and punchier in the line-up.
Elise Darma has also used to this hack, and has even created her profile pic to include the Instagram color palette so she’s always on brand!
Looking for more hacks for your Instagram profile pic? Check out our 7 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Instagram Profile Picture blog post for more!
Tip #8: Strategically Use Instagram Stories Highlights in Your Instagram Bio
One of the biggest and most exciting additions to Instagram bios is Instagram Stories Highlights!
Instagram Stories Highlights are permanent collections of your very best Instagram Stories that you can pin to the front of your Instagram profile.
They appear directly under your Instagram bio and play as a stand-alone story when someone taps on them. You can think of Instagram Stories Highlights like a movie trailer for your Instagram feed, and they’re the perfect way to share the very best parts of your brand with new profile visitors.
Your Instagram Stories Highlights allow you to share so much more than you could in just a few sentences in your Instagram bio, which is why you’ll want to be strategic about how you choose to set them up.
For example, Ban.do uses its Instagram Stories Highlights to promote its products, share information about their company, answer FAQs, and invite profile visitors to go behind-the-scenes:
Where as Glossier like to use their Highlights to showcase new product launches along with key user-generated content to encourage sales and shopping on their feed:
Setting up Instagram Stories Highlights allows the brand to share much more information and value with profile visitors than the copy in their Instagram bio could do alone!
Want to learn more on how to use Instagram Stories Highlights to your advance? Check out this blog post for top tips and strategic hacks to wow your customers!
Tip #9: Create Instagram Stories Highlights Covers for Your Instagram Bio
So you’ve created your Instagram Stories Highlights for your profile, now it’s time to add the finishing touches to your Instagram bio with cover images!
The key to making your Instagram Highlights work for your bio is to have a cohesive set of cover art for them. They can elevate your brand aesthetic and bring together all your content for a clean, crisp look.
Check out how brands like The Sill, bareMinerals, and Ellevest have all created cover images for their Instagram Stories Highlights that reflect the overall brand:
Creating a cover image for your Highlights can be as simple as choosing a color palette, like plant-based cafe, Kokomo or using icons like Curology and Later:
However you decide to style your Instagram Stories Highlights cover image, a uniform collection pays off!
Want to make your Instagram bio look cohesive and on brand? Download our free Instagram Stories Highlights covers + icons to customize the look of your Instagram profile:
There’s no denying that your Instagram bio is an extremely important part of attracting your ideal audience, driving more traffic to your products and services, and making more sales!
And with so many more tools and hacks available, it’s the perfect time to revisit your current Instagram bio and ensure you’re making an amazing first impression with every new visitor.
Ready to take your Instagram bio to the next level? With Linkin.bio by Later, you can drive traffic to your website and turn visitors into customers — all from the link in your bio! Sign up now for free!
