How to Create a Compelling Instagram Bio & Author Bio

You’ve built your website, maybe even set up a Facebook page, and you’re pretty much all set for the launch of your business—but what about your Instagram bio? How can you present your brand in the best possible light to attract and retain new customers? Instagram growth is a major component of modern business marketing strategies, and although sharing snappy Instagram captions and posting beautiful Instagram images (like these Instagram templates help you create) can get you pretty far, your Instagram marketing tactics need to include building trust with your followers, and that’s where Instagram bios come into play.

Here’s our handy guide for all you entrepreneurs, merchants, and authors out there who need some Instagram bio ideas to make a fabulous first impression on Instagram.

Let’s dive on in!

The Basics of Instagram Bios

With Instagram’s whopping 1-billion users, it’s essential that you to target the right followers to enhance your business’ online profile. On Instagram, you’ll find users of all ages and demographics, however, slightly more women than men are active on this network so if you’re selling products and services that interest women, this is especially the place for you to be!

Most Instagram users will quickly scan through your Instagram bio and photos and swiftly decide whether or not to follow you, so you don’t have long to grab their attention. Building a loyal Instagram following isn’t easy—it may look like it is but in reality, quick judgments by users can make it tough to grow.

So, we’re going to walk you through what an Instagram bio is, how to create one that stands out, and some fabulous tricks you can use to impress your following.

What is an Instagram Bio?

An Instagram bio is the first thing users stumble across when looking at your Instagram profile. Sometimes they might see your photos first, but your Instagram bio is what users tend to look at when deciding whether or not to follow you.

Yes, it may just be a line or two but don’t make the mistake of treating it as an afterthought.

On your Instagram profile, your bio sits underneath your name and company name, making it the perfect place to share critical information about yourself and your brand.

It might have a description of who you are and what you do, as well as a snappy and enticing summary of your brand, more generally, such as what you’re selling and what your brand does.

Most brands also add contact information in their Instagram bio, that way users can get in touch if they want, and you can also use emojis and hashtags to boost your profile’s visibility and to help attract relevant followers.

Before you start, it’s essential to be clear about what you want your Instagram bio to accomplish. In other words, it has to match the style of your brand so you really need to think about the impression you want to create before you go ahead and publish anything.

Remember, you want to turn profile visitors into followers and you only have 150 characters in your description, one external link, and another 30 characters in your username in which to do this. As such, this might seem like a tall order.

A Good Instagram Bio Will:

• Make it easy for followers to get in touch with you
• Communicate essential information about your brand and its unique selling point (USP)
• Present you, your personality, and your brand. It has to match the style and tone of voice you’ve emulated on your other social media platforms. It’s no good if your Facebook page, for example, looks and reads entirely differently as this will be more likely to confuse your audience
• Be a platform for sharing valuable information and have activities that your target audience can engage with like registering for an in-store event, brand testing, or clicking a link to your online store

How to Create a Great Instagram Bio

Know Your Audience

Who are your customers? Do you know where they’re based, how old they are, their income bracket, what sort of jobs they have, and what their leisure pursuits are?

If you know who you’re talking to, you’ll be in a better position to create a fabulous Instagram bio that resonates with the audience you want to sell to.

Think about the type of language and symbols you want to use. Will your audience understand your tone and references? The language you use needs to be tailored to your customers. Before writing anything, always think about who’s going to be reading it; is your tone and turn of phrase appropriate for that audience?

Try writing down a few words that you think best describe your brand. For example: “Bold,” “trustworthy,” “family-oriented,” “ethical,” and so on. Generally speaking, there’s no need to be formal. Instagram isn’t a formal place, so consider taking a more lighthearted approach.

Setting Up Your Instagram Bio

Your Instagram Name

First of all, add your name. If your Instagram bio is about you then just add your name but if your Instagram bio is about your brand then add the name of your business. This is how users are going to find you, so don’t add silly spellings or pointless abbreviations.

Your Instagram Description

Now for the crux of your Instagram bio: What’s your unique selling point (USP)? In other words, what do you specialize in or are known for/want to be known for?

Tell potential followers who you are and what you do. What sets you apart from the crowd? Why should they choose your brand and not one of your competitors? Why should your followers care about you?

And don’t forget to make it interesting! Instagram is all about fun, not the dry, dull, and mundane. Use emojis if you can and humor too.

Stylize Your Instagram Bio

When creating your Instagram bio, you also don’t have to rely on just your words—use a tool like LingoJam! This tool creates fancy fonts for you to cut and paste into your Instagram bio.

You can also add fun emojis to give followers a sense of you or your brand’s personality. Or, use the CoolSymbol website to find and use symbols that direct followers to something you want them to look at or do (like click the link to your site). Just select the symbol you wish to use, and it will automatically copy it to your clipboard so you can head back to Instagram and paste it into your Instagram bio.

Using Hashtags in Your Instagram Bio

Remember, your Instagram bio isn’t the only way for followers to find out more about you and your brand. Use hashtags to help customers find your profile. Need ideas for which hashtags to use? It’s definitely worth seeing which hashtags your competitors are using to ensure that you don’t get left behind!

But remember, only use hashtags that are relevant to you, your industry, and your brand. You won’t attract relevant followers otherwise.

Use these resources to find high-performing hashtags on Instagram:

• Instagram Hashtag Directory
• Keyword Tool for Instagram
• All Hashtag
• Influencer Marketing Hub Hashtag Generator
• Instavast Hashtag Generator
• HashMe Hashtag Generator App

Hashtag Best Practices for Instagram Bios

Sure, get excited about using hashtags to their full advantage to boost your brand, but here are some pointers on what not to do:

Don’t just use hashtags randomly.

Be strategic about it. Look at the most popular ones you’ve used—the ones with the most likes. Can you spot a trend in popular and high-performing hashtags which you could then add to your bio?

If you plaster your Instagram account with hashtags that are irrelevant to your business and the products you sell, it’ll just look like spam—and Instagrammers don’t like that. It’s just annoying.

Plus, the more specific to your brand your hashtag is, the higher your chances are of attracting the right kind of followers—the ones more likely to fully engage with what you’re doing—to your profile. It’s also a good idea to plan your hashtag usage. Have a social media calendar that includes not only hashtag holidays but also key hashtags you plan to use throughout your marketing year.

Another tip is that research by TrackMaven found that posts with nine hashtags get the most engagement. That doesn’t mean you have to tag every post with that many hashtags, but it’s certainly worth noting.

Add Hashtag Holidays to Your Instagram Bio

Don’t know what a hashtag holiday is? It’s a social media calendar holiday you can utilize to promote your brand and raise product awareness. For example, do you own a pancake shop? Use #NationalPancakeDay (yes, there really is such a thing!) to drum up some extra publicity.

Here are a few other hashtag holidays you might be able to capitalize on:

• January 15, #NationalHatDay: If you sell these accessories, promote them!
• April 10, #NationalSiblingsDay: Encourage your followers to buy their sibling a gift from your store.
• April 25, #DenimDay: Encourage your followers to check out your latest denim range.

Brand Your Instagram Bio Hashtags

Branded Instagram bio hashtags are hashtags that are specific to your business or are unique to your product. If you have one or can create one, these are also great to include in your Instagram bio.

Look at these highly successful branded hashtag campaigns as inspiration.

Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke Campaign

This brand hashtag is both a call-to-action and a hashtag—genius!

Coca-Cola had the fabulous idea of selling their product with phrases and names on them, causing sales to go crazy. Customers shared snaps of bottles of Coke with their names on the label and the campaign is still going strong. This brand hashtag, paired with the campaign, evoked a sense of community and engaged followers on a personal level. The brand also used celebrities to promote the hashtag, which helped the campaign reach millions of people.

Disney’s #ShareYourEars Campaign

Disney aimed to make money for the Make-A-Wish foundation and promote their brand at the same time. It was simple: Followers were encouraged to share photos wearing Mickey Mouse ears with the hashtag #ShareYourEars. Every time someone posted, Disney would donate $5 to the charity. Because it was a charity campaign, it went viral and was supported by celebrities and others in the public eye.

ALS Association’s #IceBucketChallenge

The ALS Association is an example of how nonprofits can capitalize on hashtag branding plus raise awareness and money for their cause. They may not have created the #ALSIceBucketChallenge hashtag, but they certainly made it work for them. Celebrities joined in, people had to tag their friends, and the whole campaign went viral.

List Your Interests in Your Instagram Bio

You can connect with your audience in a few seconds. Try doing so not only with your brand but also with your interests and passions.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ Instagram bio says, “Amazon. Blue Origin. Washington Post,” but underneath, there’s also a link to his charitable foundation, and many of his photos are connected to his charitable work. This shows a cause that he’s dedicated to which can help him connect with users who share similar interests.

Make Your Contact Details Easy to Find in Your Instagram Bio

Just adding a line like, “for inquiries, email…” would suffice, or you can push people to send you a direct message (DM) via Instagram. The whole point of any social media platform (for businesses) is to make contact and engage with potential customers, so you really need to make it easy for followers or your soon-to-be followers to contact you.

Have a Call-to-Action in Your Instagram Bio

You need to give people a reason to stick around beyond merely browsing. If you have a store, then your call-to-action could be centered around getting users to click the link in your bio that heads to your homepage. If you’ve just launched a new product, you could create a call-to-action that lets users know where to check out your new launch. Maybe your company has recently been featured on TV, then your call-to-action could simply say “watch our latest TV appearance” and include the relevant link.

The point here is that adding a call-to-action of any kind if crucial for your Instagram bio so that users engage with your account and your brand.

Place the most important words at the start of your Instagram bio caption, as they’re cut off in users’ feeds after just a few lines, so it’s crucial that you get your point across quickly and succinctly. Leave the hashtags to the end—the call-to-action has to be your focus and needs to hook visitors in right away.

Link to Your Website in Your Instagram Bio

If you have a website to promote, make sure that there’s a link to it in your Instagram bio. If, however, you own more than one brand and each one has a separate site then you might want to use more than one link in your Instagram bio. There’s a website called Linktree that helps you add more than one link so you can link out to multiple different web addresses! This is also helpful if you’re constantly featuring new products or items on your Instagram profile and you want a more permanent way for your followers to be able to access the links, instead of having to add links through Instagram stories all the time, which expire after 24-hours.

Do Some Research for Your Instagram Bio

There are so, so many Instagram bios out there, so it’s a great idea to look around before creating yours. Some of the more fun and successful ones include Richard Branson’s. He describes himself as a “Tie-loathing adventurer and thrill-seeker, who believes in turning ideas into reality. Otherwise known as Dr. Yes @virgin!” Note how he mentioned his company, Virgin, so that users can tap through to that Instagram profile as well, and the link in his Instagram bio directs users to his About page on the Virgin website.

Take a look at Airbnb on Instagram. It includes beautiful photos and a succinct Instagram bio, plus two calls-to-action; one in the copy, “Airbnb opens the door to interesting homes and experiences. Share your stories with @Airbnb,” plus the link in their bio that users can click.

Or there’s Lego. With currently over 4.4 million followers, they use their light and humorous brand voice to capture the audience’s attention, plus they also add their brand hashtag, which is simply #LEGO as well as a link to shop their products on their website.

Another big brand using Instagram successfully is Play-Doh. The brand celebrates its longevity in their Instagram bio, plus they also include an important but light-hearted reference to a main safety concern with their product. This is an efficient way to both introduce visitors to their brand plus answer what is probably a common FAQ for them.

Check Your Work

It never hurts to get a second opinion or even a third. The two words you need to remember when creating your Instagram bio are “edit” and “rewrite.” Don’t just haphazardly put together an Instagram bio caption and post it. Instead, spend some time on your work, especially if your captions are long. It might seem obvious but double-check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation to make sure that you’re putting your absolute best foot forward.

Make every word matter. Everything you say needs to support your brand and content. Avoid over-writing. You don’t want to fall into the trap of overusing words.

Ask someone you trust to edit your work or use a tool like Grammarly. It’s easy for all writers/marketers to become “blind” to their content so glaringly-obvious errors may go unnoticed. An editor will help you get rid of any silly mistakes that may uninspire users’ confidence in your brand!

What Next? Tips to Grow Your Instagram Account

So you’ve created your account, have a stock of photos, captions, and amazing hashtags you can use. They’re all plotted in your social media calendar, and you’re set to go.

However, that’s not the end of the story. It’s hard to maintain and grow your Instagram account. So, we’ve put together some tips for marketers and entrepreneurs to help make your job a little bit easier.

No business or individual wants an average or lackluster Instagram feed. If you’re selling something, your Instagram feed needs to look beautiful.

An easy way to do this is to have and use Instagram templates. Not sure what these are? They’re pre-designed Instagram posts which you can edit to suit your brand. They look high-quality and help keep the aesthetic of your account consistent. Placeit, for example, offers easily customizable Instagram templates that you can use to make your feed more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing!

You also don’t have to limit yourself to just using templates but can use them in addition to the other content you have scheduled. It’s a simple way of ensuring that you always have fresh content to publish that’ll attract comments, likes, and shares.

You can also edit your templates to match your brand colors and imagery. There’s editing software needed to do this, usually Adobe Photoshop, but this might be something your company already has set up.

To get an idea of the Instagram templates on the market and which ones would be a good fit for your brand, check out our roundup of the Best Instagram Templates for Online Businesses.

Instagram Bio Ideas: Quotes & Captions for Instagram Bios

Here are a selection of Instagram bio ideas to help you create an interesting, funny, witty or engaging Instagram bio for your own profile. For more ideas, check out our 900+ Instagram Captions and Instagram Quotes article.

• Own what’s yours
• We rise by lifting others
• Do what you like, like what you do
• I want to see what happens if I don’t give up
• Don’t quit your daydream
• Working like a boss
• Old ways won’t open new doors
• Waking up blessed not stressed
• Take the risk or lose the chance
• The only way you win is if I quit
• Aspire to inspire
• I wasn’t made to fall in line
• The secret of getting ahead is getting started –Mark Twain
• Work until you no longer have to introduce yourself
• I don’t have dreams, I have goals
• Dream big. Work hard. Stay focused & surround yourself with good people
• Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most -Abraham Lincoln
• I never dreamt of success, I worked for it –Estee Lauder
• Fuck excuses. You either want it or you don’t.
• If not now, then when? If not you, then who? –Hillel the Elder
• Never plan a future with people who don’t have future plans
• Make more moves and less announcements
• You can’t win if you’re losing in your mind. Change your thoughts and it will change your life –Tony Gaskins
• Stop doubting yourself. Work hard and make it happen
• Never give up on something you can’t go a day without thinking about
• Success is a series of small wins
• Success is maintained & achieved by those who try and keep trying –W. Clement Stone
• Working on myself, for myself, by myself
• Hustle until your haters ask if you’re hiring –Steve Maraboli
• Success is nothing more than a few simple decisions practiced every day –Jim Rohn
• Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn –John C. Maxwell
• I didn’t come this far to only come this far –Mick Kremling
• The temptation to quit will be the greatest just before you are about to succeed –Chinese Proverb
• All progress takes place outside the comfort zone –Michael John Bobak
• Your opinion will never cut me a check
• Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success –Arianna Huffington
• Don’t call it a dream, call it a plan
• Don’t watch the clock. Do what it does: Keep going –Sam Levenson
• Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe. –Sumner Redstone
• Attitude of a champion. Hustle like an underdog.
• When you feel like quitting think about why you started –Zig Ziglar
• The comeback is always stronger than the setback
• Either I will find a way or I will create a way but I will not create an excuse
• Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. –Maya Angelou
• Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation –Zig Ziglar
• If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice
• Your life is as good as your mindset
• If you can do better, then do better
• Underestimate me. That’ll be fun.
• Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle

Over to the Instagram Experts: Instagram Bio Best Practices

So, let’s hear from Instagram and what they have to say about Instagram bio best practices.

If you head to the Instagram homepage and scroll down to the bottom, there’s a support option you can click.

There, you’ll find advice on all manner of subjects including:

• Advertising on Instagram
• Linking accounts
• Instagram business tools
• Instagram creator tools

They also publish regularly updated articles about features such as “Shopping on Instagram,” “Creating a Poll on Instagram,” and “Customizing Your Nametag on Instagram.”

Update Your Instagram Bio Today

Instagram is the place to be to elevate your business. This platform offers you and your brand a unique opportunity to promote your business visually, so be sure to take advantage of that.

Just look at some of the statistics if you need further convincing:

• 1-billion people use this platform each and every month. Internet users spend more of their time on Instagram than any other platform apart from Facebook.
• Is your target audience in the Generation Z demographic? Take note, 50% of these users are on Instagram.

Currently, only a small percentage of businesses on Instagram are small businesses so if you’re a smaller business, use this to your benefit and build a profile in your unique style to get your name out there.

Not to mention, half of Instagram users follow businesses. One of those businesses could be yours. And remember that Instagram also drives sales. According to Shopify, Instagram referrals result in average orders of $65—that’s powerful stuff!

Ultimately, if you plan carefully, are strategic in your approach, understand who you are and what your brand is, creating the perfect Instagram bio is a no brainer. Especially if you really understand and connect with your core customer base and audience. And, if thinking creatively isn’t quite your thing and your strengths lie in other areas, outsource the task to a trusted freelancer.

Nothing is holding you back now! Create the best Instagram bio for your brand with these useful tips.