On Instagram you have very limited space to grab someone’s attention. That’s why so many social media experts will put emphasis on crafting the best Instagram bios for your business.
What you do with this section should be reflective of your company and of your goals for the network. We’ll walk you through how to write Instagram bios for your business and then provide you with some creative inspirations.
What Your Instagram Bio Needs to Accomplish
A good Instagram bio should be able to accomplish several goals at the same time, like:
- Convey what your business does
- Indicate how a customer can find you
A great Instagram profile will do the following:
- Showcase the company’s personality
- Prompt the customer to take an action
Five Senses Coffee has a simplistic approach to their bio.
If your account is converted to a Business Account, you can take a look at your analytics to see how many views your profile is receiving.
Instagram Bio Components
It’s smart to understand the components that make up an Instagram bio. From this point, you can detail and polish your accounts to ensure users know exactly what you’re about and what to expect if they follow your brand.
Profile Photo
Visually, the profile page should include a profile photo that is relevant to your company. This can be a logo or a product photo. Whatever you choose should be as attractive on your profile as it is when it’s minimized in the feed.
Some companies and celebrities have a verified badge on their profile photo to identify them as the original account but it’s not possible to request one yet.
Username & Name
Your username shows up at the top of the profile page and this will be how other accounts can tag you. In a more prominent spot on the bio is where your name is located, which becomes bolded on the profile.
Both your username and name are searchable in the Instagram search field, so name them carefully.
Bio
Here, you have 150 characters to sum up your company and potentially have a customer take action. We’ll take a look at how some companies use this space later on.
Website
There is only one place in Instagram where you can directly and actively link a website and that’s in your bio. Use this space wisely.
Category
The category that appears under a company’s name is directly tied to the category that is selected on the linked Facebook Page. You’ll need a Business Account for this feature. Being able to indicate that you’re a restaurant or a public figure on your Instagram profile can be easier than using up the precious bio space.
Call-to-Action Buttons
Instagram recently added additional links for Business Accounts that can help free up space in the bio. Previous to this feature, companies were writing out their email addresses and location addresses to help customers find them. These buttons are only shown in the app view, not the web view.
You can locate these fields when you click to Edit Profile and then Contact Options. If you don’t see these fields, make sure you’ve converted your account to a Business account.
While adding information into this area can take away prime real estate from your photos, the tradeoff is that you easily address commonly asked questions.
Here’s an example of all the fields being filled out from Blue Star Donuts.
Entering an email address into this selection will generate an Email button on the profile. The button is located under all the other information. When a customer clicks Email, the app will prompt you to open the default mail app on your phone.
Directions
If you own a business that has a brick and mortar location, entering your full address will help customers find you easily. When customers click on this button, it’ll prompt them to a map app on their phone.
Call
Another way to show your contact information on your business profile is to add a phone number. When someone clicks the button, a prompt shows up to directly call the company.
Add Hashtags & Profile Links in Your Bio
Instagram recently released a new feature that allows you to include hashtags and profile links in bios. This creates a world of new possibilities for marketers. For instance, if your brand has multiple Instagram handles for various parts of your business, you can now include a link to your other handles in your bio instead of making your audience search for them. That also makes it easier for people to find your official handles if all your accounts aren’t verified yet.
Consider a brand like Adidas. Not only do they have multiple handles for different regions and pieces of their brand, but there are also some “knock-off” accounts that use their brand name. Highlighting the official accounts in their bio could ensure their followers know what’s legit and what’s not.
As a brand, you might not want just anyone to link to your account. Luckily Instagram gives you some protection by letting you control who gets to link to your account from their bio. Whenever someone tries to insert a link to your profile in their own bio, you’ll received a notification and can choose to accept or deny it. If you deny it, your handle will still appear in the bio, but without a link.
The addition of linked hashtag in your Instagram bio makes it easy to direct people to your branded hashtags or specific campaigns without making them search for it. Now, they can just tap the hashtag in your bio and see all the relevant posts.
Profile Designs
You can be creative in your bio section in terms of adding line breaks and emojis. Just be aware that what shows up perfectly in the app may not show up as perfectly on the web.
Here’s Miss Cyndiii on mobile.
And here’s her account on the web.
Instagram Bio Ideas & Examples to Learn From
Companies use their bio section in a variety of ways. From identifying branded hashtags to directing people to sign up somewhere, you can experiment around with what works best for you. Here are many examples of how companies are taking advantage of their 150 characters:
Social Media Policy
The NHL provides a link to their social media policy in their Instagram bio. It may take up a lot of characters but it’s an important legal point for them to display it.
Maker’s Mark takes it a step further by listing an age minimum, which is recommended for alcohol brands.
Official Instagram Account
For more prominent brands that may be more likely to have copycat accounts, they may find it useful to identify it as the “official” account. Eater LA puts that into their bio and it’s accompanied by a verified badge to cinch the identification.
Tagline
Known for their thought-provoking talks, TED simply uses their tagline in their bio. The tagline tells you exactly what the brand does in as few words as possible. For a different brand, you could consider using your mission statement or summary of your values instead.
Minimalistic
Some people may argue that being minimal is the way to go for a bio. PUMA writes short, simple phrases and lets their imagery and known logo speak for themselves. A simplified bio makes it easy for customers to identify exactly what the brand wants to get across.
Identifying Other Social Accounts
Another brand taking minimalism to another level is Gucci, which is part of their brand aesthetic. Additionally, they provide a little nudge to their followers to also find them on Snapchat. Other accounts may mention Facebook or Twitter to make sure their customers can find them anywhere.
Shop the Feed
Serena & Lily uses their bio to ask you to shop their Instagram feed. As Instagram has yet to add hyperlinks into their captions, the workaround has been to either ask customers to visit a link in the profile or use a service like Have2Have.It to sort it out for them.
When you visit the link, you’re brought to a copy of their Instagram account. But this time, you can click on a photo and it’ll redirect to the product they’re featuring.
Follow the Link
Just like Serena & Lily, the NYT Food account tells readers exactly what they want to know: where do they go to learn more about that food in the photo?
Instead of linking to a product, these photos are linked to news articles and recipes. Using this kind of third-party service can be useful for tracking your web traffic too.
Branded Hashtag
For accounts that incorporate user-generated content into their Instagram strategy, listing a branded hashtag into the bio is smart. A Color Story tackles several calls-to-action at the same time.
To be featured on their page, all you need to do is to use their branded hashtag.
Download Something
Since the website field is a hot commodity, some Instagram accounts use it to direct you to their latest service offering. In Love’s case, she’s offering free coloring pages.
Emojis for Fun
The bio area can be used to convey your personality. Some brands use emojis to insert personality traits or in place of words. In Joy Cho’s account, she uses emojis to tell you what she’s into (ice cream) and to designate a word (pin emoji). The line breaks help the eye read down and the short phrases used clearly tell her followers where else to find her.
Give a Nod to the Founder
For a design-focused company like Rifle Paper Co., the creative director is an important part of the brand. Giving them a nod in the bio is a nice way of thanking them for their work.
Identify a Moderator
If you heavily rely on user-generated content and have people moderating, you can give a shoutout to them in the bio like Chicago Architecture Foundation does. It puts a name to the account and makes it a little more personable. You’ll also find this pop up in the IGers community accounts, where the moderators are volunteers.
Say Nothing at All
If you’re famous enough, you don’t even need a bio.
Ellen has only her name and a website in her profile. The entire bio section is left empty. And while this may work for Ellen, we would highly recommend putting something in your bio section that lets others know who you are.
Adjust and Analyze
Like other social media strategies that you take on, we recommend tracking your profile analytics as well as traffic that you may be sending to your website. Don’t be afraid to play around with the design and structure of your bio. Instagram is a playful network and can be a great opportunity for you to inject some more personality into your brand.
Let us know in the comments- what’s the best Instagram bio you’ve seen from a company?