7 Things to Keep In Mind While Pimping Out Brand Instagram Bio

Here are tips on how to make your Instagram profile informative, catchy, and make people want to stay and follow. Preparing a good Instagram bio is like creating a business card – it’s the first impression that we make on our guests.

Also, Instagram is so popular right now that people very often type in a brand’s name into Instagram search instead of Google search. Of course, not in every industry, but the reach is so big now that almost every company should consider its presence on this social media network. The challenge starts if you want to make the best impression (let’s be honest, you have to!), stand out of the crowd, be remembered, and hence build community, promote your product and increase ROI.

And this what this series of Instagram for business articles will be about.

Let’s start with some things which seem to be obvious and clear. While going through plenty of companies’ accounts, it looks like bios need a lot more thought than it seems. So let’s go and check your bio step by step to ensure it’s the best Instagram bio it could be and make visitors want to follow your profile!

Username

This is literally the first thing you need to think about and the first thing you need to set while registering an Instagram account. What should it be?

First of all, it should be easy to write and easy to remember. People talk about Instagram and their favorite profiles and if they remember the name, they would recommend it or tag it for sure. Avoid dots and underscore if possible, and for sure don’t use more than one underscore in a row – it’s uncountable for the human eye. Punctuation marks might be a good solution if your brand name is common and already taken.

And here goes the next tip: while choosing your account’s name, it’s worth considering if it’s your brand’s name or something related to what you’re doing (brand hero? topic?). It’s entirely up to you, and your marketing strategy of course, but make sure that your login is the same on every single social media channel your brand is present. It’s crucial to unify logins to make it easier for people to find and contact you.

I’m sure that you must be thinking your website address would be the best choice because it’s so redirecting and… stop! Stop here and take a look at Instagram Terms of Use, in which point 12 of Basic Terms says:

You must not use domain names or web URLs in your username without prior written consent from Instagram.

Name

In settings, you can also set up your name, which unlike username, should be the full name of your brand. It’s also worth to add there some keywords or explanation, but very briefly. Username and name are the only bits of information from your profile that Instagram considers in search queries. By making it clear, you make your profile easier to find.

Profile Photo

Here, the rule of consistency is most important again. The best profile photo matches other social media networks you manage for a brand.

The best option is to choose profile picture which will work for all social media profiles of your business, be sharp and easy to associate with. It could be the logo of your brand, your brand hero, or a photograph (of products for example). Remember that the avatar on Instagram is tiny, so it should be easy to read.

We chose our logo as a profile photo, which is easy to read. Also, we decided to use Brand24app as a username because the name of our company is already taken on Instagram. Still, it’s clear and consistent.

Bio Description

Here you need to present your brand, show your brand’s personality, and encourage people to stay and follow the profile. All of these in 150 characters.

Here are some tips for you:

• use language you will also use for communication in photograph descriptions, comments, and direct messaging;
• write briefly, use keywords to describe the character and style of the brand;
• break your text with spacing and line breaks to make it easier to read;
• don’t be afraid to use emoji – it will help with showing emotions and personality of your brand;
• if you run a place, i.e. a coffee shop, it’s also great to include opening hours;
• for building engaged community around a profile, it’s a great idea to establish the brand hashtag – here the bio is the best place to put it in! Hashtags work great for communities, for running Instagram contests or challenges, tracking campaigns, and they’re easy to monitor and analyze;
• and don’t forget about the call to action! Encourage people to stay with you and click follow!

Link

This field is the only place on your Instagram profile where you can put a clickable link.*
It wouldn’t work, in the photo description or comments section, but here everyone can tap and go the website. Don’t miss this opportunity!
You can just link to your homepage or the latest blog posts, a dedicated landing page, a page with the newest products or sale. It’s up to you! Just make sure that the link is updated when you write “link is in the bio” in post description.

*) Unless you have 10k followers on a business account and you can add URLs in Stories.

Business Accounts

If you provide an Instagram profile for your business, and I believe that’s why you’re here, reading this article, you probably already have your account switched to the business mode.

If not, here’s a short tutorial made by Instagram how to do it:

Why should you utilize this option? There is no proof that it affects Instagram algorithm any some negative way, but definitely, it will give you some new features, like statistics of the account (which I describe more precisely in one of the next articles in this series).
How it goes with bio? The business profile gives you additional options you can use to make your profile more attractive and convert better.

Category

You can choose a category for your profile. It works independently from the category you set for your fanpage. Be specific and let people know what you do and what’s the topic of your profile.

Contact Options

In the business mode, you gain some additional option like particular contact buttons. Fulfill the whole form in the account settings, add a phone number, location, and e-mail address in Contact Options. Make it as accessible to find and contact you as possible.

Setting up an account as business requires connecting it with a Facebook Fanpage. It allows you to gain some data and statistics, start advertising on Instagram, and also makes managing comments and direct messaging easier when you connect inboxes in fanpage inbox settings.

Higlights

Now, when you’re sure that you created a good Instagram bio to get followers, here’s one more tip for making the best impression at first sight.

Below the whole informational part of your profile is a place for Highlights. It is such a great place to tell more about your company! Show new products, introduce your team, share company’s mission, promote company’s event – here you can create whole stories about who you are as a brand and as a people working for the brand.

Highlights are also a part of first view impression and could influence a decision of staying with you longer or not.

Of course, the content on your profile is the most important, especially last 6 to 9 pictures which at a glance tell people what is it all about and make them stay or go further.

In the next article, you’ll learn how important it is and how to create a catchy and consistent Instagram grid.

Stay tuned!

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