Get Your Instagram Bio Right
Whether you believe in love at first sight or not, there’s no denying that first impressions count. If you make the right first impression, you’ll set yourself up well for establishing a lasting relationship. Instagram bios are just one of the ways you can make a good impression—they’re a fun, succinct way for people to quickly understand what your account is all about. The best bios reveal a bit about your brand’s personality, so potential followers can immediately get a feel for your voice and content. To help you make the right impression, we’ll share some simple tips on how to write the best Instagram bio—whether you’re a small business owner, aspiring influencer, or just looking to try something new!
Write in Business Casual
Every social media platform has its own personality, and it’s important to keep this in mind when you’re working your brand voice into social accounts. LinkedIn, for example, is the all-business-all-the-time platform—even when people “let loose” a little, it’s still like attending a company-sponsored happy hour in the break room.
You get a little more wiggle room in using personality when it comes to Facebook and Instagram. This is because people aren’t using these platforms exclusively for networking. Instagram and Facebook (which are, coincidentally, both owned by Facebook) are places where people keep in touch with friends, follow trends, and kick back and relax.
Instagram, in particular, is a place where many users want to forget about their day jobs. As a brand posting on Instagram, it’s important to keep this in mind and try to blend in as much as possible. That’s why we’re calling it the “business casual” platform—you obviously need to stay true to your brand voice, but you don’t want to be so corporate that people find your content stiff.
The best place to establish your voice is in your Instagram bio. There’s no secret formula for writing the bio, but there a few easy tricks to help you write the best Instagram bio for your business.
Keep it Short and Sweet
If you own a small business, chances are that you have a tagline. Including the tagline in your bio is an elegant way to introduce your brand to Instagram. After that, you can use bullets (or emojis, if that’s your jam) to quickly summarize your specialties, target clients, and/or upcoming projects.
WeWork has a simple, elegant bio that makes use of their tagline. Since they’re a very well-known brand, they don’t actually need to include more information after the tagline. This works for them, but most businesses don’t have the same brand recognition as WeWork so they may opt to include more info. 
If you’re going to include a sentence or phrase at the beginning of your bio, we recommend putting the next part of the bio into a list form to break up the text a bit. When hit with a wall of text (even as short as a bio), users sometimes get overwhelmed and will quickly exit the page. Canva does a great job of using emojis to break up the text in their bio.
We’ve covered the “short” aspect of the Instagram bio, now for the “sweet.” This is where you get to share your brand’s unique personality with the world. If you haven’t quite found your voice yet, that’s fine too! The beauty of these bios is that they are short and can easily be changed as your brand evolves.
A great example of this is Netflix. Recently, Netflix has made a name for itself on Instagram and Twitter as a funny, irreverent, and interactive account that basically acts like a person. But that’s a significant departure from Netflix’s old brand voice, which was much safer and muted. We’re not advocating that you go rogue like Netflix, but it’s helpful to keep in mind that your account can evolve over time. Netflix also makes great use of the ability to tag other accounts in their bio, which is something to keep in mind if you have multiple brands.
Bark is another brand that does a good job of conveying its brand voice within its Instagram bio. They use lingo from the doggo community (yes, that’s a thing) and include relevant hashtags that people can use to interact with their brand. It’s important to note that hashtags in Instagram bios won’t appear in search results for those hashtags, but including the hashtags in your bio will show people where they can find more content from your brand and provide them with the hashtags they should use to get your attention and get involved in your community.
One last note about your bio’s voice—don’t try to be funny if it doesn’t work for your brand. Also, don’t try too hard to be funny in general. It’s great when a brand really nails it, but you don’t want anyone to wince at a joke that fell flat.
Stay True to Your Brand
At the end of the day, the best Instagram bios are informative and stay true to their brand. People look at Instagram bios to understand what an account is about, so make sure you tell them! This is especially important for small businesses that may not have a huge following on social media (yet). You can still keep it playful while telling users what you’re all about.
The same goes for your Instagram feed—stay true to you, and the followers will come. A great way to freshen up your feed is to customize stock media to fit your theme. You can modify footage and images from our library to create something brand new that fits perfectly with your brand’s vision.
- Tags:
- images,
- instagram,
- Social Media,
- Video,
