The Instagram bio is your business card in the social media era: a brief text that you can include in your profile and that allows you to explain who you are.
But above all, it’s the first marketing tool that you have to conquer your audience.
In this article, we try to understand together why it’s so important to write your bio correctly and how to do it. Here’s what we’re going to explore:
- What is the Instagram bio
- What is its purpose
- The tools to use
- Tips & tricks for an optimized biography
What is the Instagram bio?
First, we can say that the Instagram bio has two parts:
- Name
- Biography
EXTRA NOTE: Although the name is not actually part of the biographic text, it’s just as useful and exploitable for giving users a preview of your profile.
As we mentioned slightly above, the bio is a 150-characters maximum text that is used to explain who you are and what you do, and it’s also the first section that users will notice when they arrive at your profile.
The name, on the other hand, provides “only” 60 characters. From a ranking perspective, it’s important to include keywords that represent your industry or that are related to your business: this way, those who land on your account will immediately have an overview of the type of profile and what you’ll be talking about on it.
In the more generic case of a brand, for example, it will be enough to use the formula name + industry. If, on the other hand, the profile will be that of a personal brand or freelancer, it will be possible to use this space to give some relevant information through the formula name + last name + role/position. Thus, writing John Doe | Social Media Manager could be a good choice if your profile will be about social media.
EXTRA TIP: if yours is a local business, use the name of the city in which you’re located to facilitate a potential geographical search by users!
What is its task?
The Instagram bio has multiple functions and, most importantly, several goals.
Introducing the profile
We will never stop saying this, first of all, the biography needs to explain what you do and how you do it: Who are you? Are you a business? What is your industry? Why someone should follow you?
Keep these questions in mind and try to answer as many as possible when writing your bio.
Let’s look at some examples:
- Deliveroo brings products from your favorite restaurants and stores to your doorstep
- Asos is a clothing brand (also for men) that believes in acceptance and judgment-free fashion
Gaining followers
We said that the bio is our digital business card. The role it plays is the very same: to convince people who meet us to become our customers – in this case, followers.
Just employing within the bio keywords that are relevant to the users we want to reach or who might be interested in what we do will firstly make it easier to find our profile and, secondly, we will speak the same language as the user. What better way to convert a user into a follower than by offering the very content they are looking for?
Let’s look at an example based on the same profiles as before:
- Deliveroo uses specific keywords such as “restaurants”, “shops”, “supermarket” and, of course, “delivered”
- Asos talks about “shop”, “menswear” and “judgment-free” since it’s their corporate value
Convert
Last but not least, conversion. It is good practice to include a Call to Action that invites the user to take an action, based on what your final goal is. Would you like users to buy something on your online store? Or for them download a white paper you’ve written? Or, again, have them sign up for your newsletter? Here you have the right space to walk them along your conversion path.
Usually, then, you place a CTA at the end of the bio that pushes the user to the link visible right below.
In this case, Wired invites users to read the latest news on its website
Not long ago, moreover, Instagram introduced the ability to include up to 5 different links, increasing the number of actions a user can potentially take and allowing brands and freelancers to pursue multiple goals instead of focusing on one.
Rolex’s profile, for example, invites users to discover the new Rolex Deepsea (commercial purpose) or explore the essence of the brand and its manufacturing (awareness purpose).
Useful tools
As we just mentioned, Instagram allows up to 5 links to be included in the bio. But what if you need to insert more? Don’t panic, some tools meet us halfway to include more landing pages:
LinkTree is the most popular tool for adding multiple links on Instagram. You can customize the landing page that the user will land on and where all your links will be. It offers several subscription plans, including a free one.
Lnk.Bio offers a very high level of landing page customization, allowing you to change the layout, add videos, text, and preview images for each link [here is the tutorial that will help you understand if this is the right tool for you]. Again, the platform offers a free version or different subscription plans.
This tool offered by Later, a platform created for social media management, is similar to the previously mentioned tools: it allows landing page customization and the addition of multiple links. Unlike the first two tools, however, it doesn’t offer a free plan, but only a 14-days trial version.
Tips & tricks for an optimized biography
Now that we have all this information, let’s try to put it together and recap:
- Always begin by explaining who you are and what you do
- Make clear what content users will find on your profile
- Give your audience a reason to follow you
- Include a call-to-action that will intrigue the users and push them toward conversion
- Write clear, short sentences; you will catch your audience’s attention easily
- Switch to a business or creator account to take advantage of contact features offered by Instagram instead of including your phone number and email in the bio
- Always associate a title to your link: besides looking neater, you will help users quickly find what they’re interested in
- Emoji are your friends ❤️ use them to visually divide the information in your bio
Let’s practice together
I’m a hairstylist and I’ve got a store in Milan. What could be my bio?
ExaFutures Hairstylist
Hairdresser
✂️ Creativity at its best
💇🏽♀️ Do you want to put a (split) end to it?
📍 Via Crocefisso 21, Milano
Book your next appointment now👇🏻
*link*
How did yours turn out?
But in the end, remember: play, give it a try, listen to your audience, and test different types of bio. It’s not definitive and you can change it whenever you want!
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