Instagram is more than just a social network for beautiful photos and influencers. With more than one billion monthly active users, Instagram is the perfect place for brands to showcase their products, generate leads, and build their business.
The very first thing a person sees when visiting your profile is your Instagram bio. Writing a compelling Instagram bio that grabs your audience's attention should be a main focus when creating or updating your profile.
If you're looking to increase Instagram engagement and exponentially grow your Instagram followers, this guide is for you.
Anatomy of the Perfect Instagram Bio
At a high level, writing a good Instagram bio consists of your adding your brand's name, username, profile photo, bio, and Instagram Stories highlights. Each of these elements should verbally and visually communicate a compelling brand message.
I'll assume you have the basics of creating an Instagram business profile down, such as adding your brand's name and username. The real fun begins with the all of the other features that Instagram offers, which we'll cover below.
With a perfectly crafted bio, you can target your ideal audience so any new visitors will be able to quickly understand what your brand does, the product you sell, and what you stand for—all in 150 characters or less.
4 Steps to Writing the Perfect Instagram Bio (with Examples)
There are unlimited possibilities when it comes to writing the perfect bio for your Instagram profile. That's why I've picked a few of my favorite brands to demonstrate several proven strategies.
1. Include Your Mission Statement
This is the go-to Instagram bio strategy for millions of brands for good reason. The 150 characters provided in the Bio section is a chance to tell the world why they should care. Your mission statement is the why and it doesn't have to be over-complicated or wordy.
Fashion brand @buckmason uses 3 simple words in their Instagram bio, but it immediately highlights the products and why people should care.
The financial platform @robinhoodapp, on the other hand, uses the bio to communicate important information about their business that might be pertinent to investors (i.e., their target market).
2. Feature a Branded Hashtag
One practical way to use the Bio section is to include a branded hashtag. This allows your audience to discover more great branded content, while creating a strong community in the process.
Since attention, time, and space on Instagram are limited, this is a great strategy to implement while you are running a campaign or promotion using a specific hashtag. It also provides an opportunity to increase social proof by curating a collection of user-generated content for your audience to browse through.
@allmodern uses the space to promote usage of their branded hashtag #ItsAllModern while also offering the chance to be featured on their profile.
3. Use Emoji to Stand Out
Emojis are a great way to engage with your audience using a social media publishing tool because they are visual, fun, and expressive. Using emoji in your Instagram bio helps to express a casual communication style that helps to connects with audiences of all types.
Added bonus that emoji take up less characters than words, enabling you to add extra info about your brand that the character count wouldn’t allow for with text. When using emoji, be sure to emphasize key points in your content, or use them as bullet points to break up the text.
@alo features a few emojis that not only compliment the written text, but also their brand style and personality.
4. Include a Compelling Call to Action
Including a simple call-to-action in your Instagram bio and inviting your audience to comment, engage, or click can have a big impact on the success of your Instagram marketing. For example, if you want profile visitors to click on a particular link, create a compelling offer in the "Bio" section and link to the offer in the "Website" URL section.
This strategy is used by thousands of top brands every single day. And the best part is you can continue to update your "Bio" and "Website" sections to match whatever current campaign or promotion you are running.
At @meltwater, we use the Instagram "Bio" and "Website" sections to help raise awareness around product launches and important company initiatives, such as the latest Aurora Product Release.
Thoughts on the Perfect Professional Instagram Bio
As this article highlights, there are an infinite amount of creative ways to write an Instagram bio to drive results on Instagram. Each section of the bio comes together to create a fun, yet professional look and feel for your brand.
Remember, your Instagram bio shouldn't remain static. Shake it up. Experiment. Try out different emojis, formats, CTAs, links, promotions, and more.
Once your bio is in order, read up on Instagram marketing strategies in our comprehensive Instagram ebook. You'll get expert insight on how the algorithm works, how to use hashtags, and what it takes to create an Instagram-specific marketing strategy.
