How do you tell the world who you are and what you create in 150 characters? What is worth putting in there, and what is a waste of precious space? What are the essential components of your Instagram description, and how can you optimize it so that it’s more eye-catching and making the potential followers stay with you? Let’s grab the audience’s attention – let’s dive into the importance of good bio from a strategic perspective!
First impression matters
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, personal brand owner, influencer, content creator, or freelancer, your Instagram BIO is the first thing someone sees and reads before they even scroll down to your feed’s photos or graphics. When someone who hasn’t heard about you before visits your profile for the first time, they’re unconsciously deciding whether to follow you or not (or if you’re a freelancer or business owner – whether to buy your products/services or hire you). It would be best if you didn’t ignore this opportunity to introduce yourself in an authentic voice and speak to your ideal audience.
If you want to grow your either personal or business account, you should always keep in mind the thought of your ideal clients/ideal readers. Who are they, what are they searching for on this platform, what content will be interesting for them, how could you help them/educate them? Have a clear idea of who you want to visit your profile, who you want to engage with, and target your actions to their interests.
Your Instagram profile’s main goal should be to persuade people to come back for more, share your content, recommend your posts and it they haven’t done it yet – click “follow.” You need to give people a good reason why you’re someone worth following and engaging with! Show them what you can offer to them and why they should care about you.
With that being said, let’s dive into 4 things you can easily do to achieve that effect and make your bio more appealing, right from the start.
Have a distinctive, easy to remember profile picture
If you want to build a personal brand, you definitely should consider a photo with your face on it. According to our research, photos with faces are about 38% easier to remember – and according to psychologists, people naturally prefer profiles that aren’t anonymous when they know who exactly owns them. They just seem more friendly, personal, and honest, keep this in mind – but if you’re not building a personal brand or you’re a big business, consider choosing a logo for your profile picture: it works well as well.
Pro tip: you should have one, exactly the same profile photo across all social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok – everywhere you’re presents). Ensure that your profile photo, whether it’s a headshot of you or your logo, is the same on every platform. From a strategic perspective: seeing the same profile photo more often helps the user remember it. It strengthens and consolidates the connotation: who you are and what you’re doing.
Introduce yourself in a representative and friendly way
Having a clear, captivating easy to understand Instagram bio will help you represent your skills and the traits that make you you. Your description should contain a niche statement – it should convey a message about who you help, how you can help/educate someone. Include a mission statement, what makes you unique and what kind of content you’re going to focus on.
Let’s look at our bio, for example:
You should be able to describe what you’re doing in one sentence – sounds like a challenge? Indeed it is, but it’s worth your analysis and deep thought, so when someone visits your profile, they know what you’re doing and what your account is about – unless you’re a celebrity or tv host, they often break those rules.
If you have a blog, personal website, or portfolio – you should definitely mention it. When someone is interested in you, they’re wondering what exactly can you do to help them, and your extended offer or detailed portfolio may be your bargaining chip. Showcasing more about yourself as a content creator or a brand owner is essential and may be surprisingly beneficial for you.
Moreover, including this link will help you drive more traffic to your site. Win-win.
Pro tip: if you have more than one link you’d like to include, you can create a links tree or a simple landing page with all of them. In the next posts, we’ll elaborate on that and show you how to do it!
Consider using emojis
We know what you might think – many times, emojis aren’t really associated with being professional – but you can use them instead of bullet points to organize your bio; you can use them as a spacer, it will help the reader read your description. Another benefit of using an emoji or few: it reflects yourself or your brand.
If you implement those 4 steps in your Instagram bio, it will significantly increase the chances that people who don’t know you yet will want to engage with your posts and stories and follow you to stay with you much longer. You want your ideal audience to notice you and realize what you’re up to and what your profile is all about – and if you’re strategically building your profile, it’s more than doable!