Feeling stuck on how to write an Instagram bio? It happens to the best of us. After all, those 150 characters can make or break the growth of your audience! It’s the first thing people notice when they go to your profile. It’s also where you introduce your brand to potential customers, create personal connections, (and hopefully) drive a considerable amount of traffic to your business.
Whew! That’s a lot of pressure for a few lines of text! But don’t worry, we’re here to help you assemble the perfect Instagram bio for your brand.
We’re exploring how to:
- Write a creative bio on Instagram for a great first impression
- Describe what your business does
- Give customers a reason to follow, like, share – and convert!
We will also look at our favorite secret weapon – smart bio and how it can make your profile pop!
What is an Instagram Bio?
Your Instagram bio is the section on your profile page where you include a brief description about yourself, your business, your brand, and/or the purpose of your Instagram account. Your bio is found beneath your Instagram profile name.
This space within your Instagram profile is a very important and exciting opportunity to get more people engaged with your Instagram profile. Within your Instagram bio, there are countless ways in which you can get creative. However, at the most basic level, we generally recommend including a short description, contact information, hashtags, emojis, and a website URL.
This is a place for you to get creative and show people what they’ll find on your feed. It’s where you can briefly explain who you are and why someone should be following you. And don’t be afraid to tweak or change the bio! Instagram Bios aren’t set in stone and you can edit them whenever and however you want.
One thing is for certain: For the best Instagram profile possible, you’ll need to keep your bio short and sweet in order to stay under the bio’s 150-character limit.
How to Make Instagram Bio: The Tailwind Edition
Your Instagram bio is where you introduce yourself to people. It’s a place to claim who you are, what your account is about, and why someone should follow you. Think of it like a short and sweet cover letter.
Now, let’s go over how to make your Instagram Bio a killer success.
1. Add keywords and descriptive words into your profile name
You know how the saying goes. What’s in a name?
The opportunity to brand your Instagram bio even more, that’s what!
Technically, you have two names on Instagram that hang above your Instagram bio. One is your Instagram handle, which you choose when you sign up for Instagram and have to change in your Settings. The other is your Instagram profile name!
Check out where the two appear on travel blogger Helen Sula’s Instagram page, where “heleneinbetween” is the handle:
Your profile name shows up in bold right above your Instagram bio, just like a little heading. If you wanted to, you could just put your company or brand name in this line. However, you might be missing out on a few extra opportunities to brand your profile and attract more followers if you stop there!
You have 30 available characters in this line (including emojis!), and it’s a great place to describe what you do, who you are, or what you’re all about. Including relevant keywords and descriptive words in your Instagram bio makes it so much easier for your audience to find you. For example, if you’re a hairstylist, adding your profession “hairstylist” and the city you’re located in your profile name makes it super easy for people looking for a hairstylist in your city to find your Instagram account.
2. Use your bio to quickly convey what followers can expect from your page and what’s in it for them
Did we mention that your Instagram bio has a character limit? That’s why it’s important not to waste this valuable real estate on unnecessary details. For example, there’s no need to restate your name here; instead, focus on providing any details that you didn’t get across in your profile picture and name line!
The Instagram bio is the perfect place to highlight significant details about who you are, what you do, and how you use your Instagram profile in an attention-grabbing way. Your bio is usually the last thing people read before making a decision to follow you OR click on the link in your bio!
Here are a few general details we recommend considering adding into your Instagram bio to get users interested:
- Your job title and/or the company you work for if not mentioned in your profile name
- Any awards or things you’re obviously “known for”
- List your hobbies or your brand’s core services/specialties
- Any ways in which you or your brand stand out
- Share contact information if relevant
- Mention how often you provide new content to give your followers an idea of when to tune in
- Describe what type of content your followers can expect from your Instagram account
- Add a Call To Action in your bio (keep reading to learn more about adding more than one link from your bio)
To make the most out of your bio space, be sure to use different words (not the same ones as in your name line) to further describe your brand focus or blog content.
After you focus on the message you want to convey with your bio, you’ll want to format it for easy readability and understanding. After all, you have just a few seconds to grab and hold the attention you need to gain a new follower or customer!
Keep reading for some quick tips on how to format your Instagram bio to support your brand and make building a following so much easier!
Should you use hashtags in your Instagram bio?
We get this question a lot, so we just wanted to clear this up. Whether or not you should use a hashtag in your Instagram bio depends on what you want to portray within the summary of what your Instagram profile is about. You can add hashtags and mentions to your Instagram bio to create a clickable hyperlink.
However, if you include hashtags into your Instagram bio, it doesn’t mean that your profile will automatically appear in that search stream. If you include a hashtag in your Instagram bio, users will be able to click on that hashtag and see all of the posts using that hashtag!
If you’ve created a hashtag specifically for your community or business, it’s a great idea to include it in your Instagram bio so your profile visitors can see it – and it’s also a great spot to collect user-generated content!
Adding a user mention works the same way in your bio (creating a clickable hyperlink), and is a great way to introduce the face or faces behind your brand if you’re hesitant to mix business and personal content. Just link your Instagram handle and add a little clue for curious browsers!
Check out how The Blonde Abroad includes both hashtags and user mentions in her bio.
3. Use line breaks and emojis to make your bio look neat and easy to read!
Nothing turns off readers faster than a thick paragraph of words with no line breaks, spaces or easy-to-follow separators. A block of words might just make your followers’ eyes (and brains!) tired before they even begin.
Not exactly the impression you want to give when you’re looking for buy-in and excitement, right?
You can avoid this by formatting your Instagram bio with line breaks or those handy slashes we mentioned earlier.
When you type your Instagram bio, make sure to remove any spaces before and after each sentence that you want to put a line break around. Then hit return. (If you’re on an Apple device, tap the number button in the lower-left corner of your keyboard to find your return button!) This will move the next sentence down to its own line.
You can create full line breaks in between each sentence by adding emojis, slashes or periods.
In fact, you might even consider switching out some words and phrases with relevant emojis to spark some visual interest and create a refreshing reset for your viewer’s eyes!
4. Include a strong call-to-action (CTA) to send your followers somewhere to learn even more about you!
The next element of a perfectly branded Instagram bio is an important one! It’s the next step your followers or visitors should take to learn even more about your product, blog or brand.
Most often, this would be going to your website or another location to view more of your content. That’s why it’s so handy to include a link in your bio by adding in a relevant URL.
Speaking of URLs, did you know that you can add links to your Instagram bio? Here’s how:
Step 1: Log into Instagram
Step 2: Click on your profile photo in the bottom right corner (this brings you to your profile)
Step 3: Press Edit Profile
Step 4: In the space next to Website enter your URL
Step 5: Hit Done
