Writing a unique and captivating Instagram bio is tricky. The rigid 150-character limit means you have to keep your message short and sweet.
But how do you write a bio that captures attention and convinced people to follow you? Keep reading to find out what your bio needs and what you should leave out.
What Your Bio Should Have
- A description of what you do.
You can style this a couple of different ways. You can use individual words separated by periods to tell people what you do.
You can also use full sentences to describe what your business offers, but you'll need to avoid long-winded sentences. Keep them short to ensure you can fit the essential details.
- A call-to-action in the last line
The last line of your bio is directly above the web link, so maximize this space by including a compelling call to visit the content that's at that link, whether it's a link to a specific product, the customer review page, or a special offer.
- A couple of emojis to break the ice and show you're approachable
These emojis should be relevant to what you do. For example, if you offer food delivery, emojis showing where your food comes from compliments your bio message.
- Show your brand's personality
Every piece of content you put out should be written in your brand's voice, including your Instagram bio. It's tempting to address the length constraints by writing in an expressionless, robotic manner, but that's the wrong move. Whether your brand has a humourous or serious tone, or somewhere in between, your Instagram bio should emulate it.
What to Leave Out
- The name of your business
This may sound counter-intuitive, but hear us out. Your business' name is featured in your username and there's a separate spot underneath your avatar for a name. With your name featured twice already, including it in your bio is a waste of valuable real estate.
- Lots of emojis
Emojis make you look relatable, but having a bio filled with more emojis than words doesn't give newcomers enough context about what you do. Your bio is the first impression you make and having a well-crafted message leaves a more meaningful impact than a series of emojis.
- Using one long sentence with all 150 characters.
People don't want to read big blocks of text on social media; they want bite-size chunks of information. Using emojis as bullet points to break up key information is the best way to tell people exactly what they need to know about you.
- Lots of hashtags
One or two tags that your business commonly uses are fine to go in your bio but don't waste the real estate by cramming in random hashtags. They won't appear on the Explore page or make you more discoverable. If your bio currently has these, ditch them now.
Conclusion
A salient bio can leave a better impression on new visitors and make them more inclined to follow you and check out what you offer. Following these tips and pitfalls to avoid will help you write an Instagram bio that converts new visitors to followers and finally to leads.
It's also okay to change and update your bio. Your bio doesn't need to be permanent and it's perfectly acceptable to do some experimentation with different formats, just be sure to give each new bio a few months to truly gauge its effectiveness.
