How the 150 characters in your bio are going to waste
When searching for a biz, who searches them up on IG instead of googling nowadays? 🙋♀️ IG is slowly increasing to becoming the first point of impression for potential customers.
Having a bio that is attention-grabbing and summarises you as a business is essential. If you haven’t already maximised your bio to be reaching its full potential, you need to fix that. Those 150 characters aren’t just there for fun. They are the key to whether someone takes an interest in your business and thinks it’s worth investing their time to find out more.
So if you think that your bio could do with a little refresh take a look at our tips! There is never such a thing as doing too good of a job at communicating your brand personality 🤷♀️
Let’s get into what to check for! 👇
Not having your name in the bio
If you run your own business, have your name in your bio! Don’t be afraid to personalise your brand. You can also add a searchable word next to your name that includes what service or product you offer. What you put here is what will help people find you! Your name section is the only searchable part of your bio. So use it wisely.
Keywords
Instagram can pick up on keywords in your name and although it can’t in the rest of your bio, it can help create alignment with the right audience to match your brand focus. Think about the keywords you use to describe your brand, products and/or services, and slot these into your bio where you can.
No way to get in touch
If someone on your profile can’t find an easy way to get in touch, you are making this process difficult for them. Who wants to have to exit the app, get up a search engine and go hunting for the contact info. Consumers want convenience and ease. Think about your customer’s preferred way to contact you; is it by phone, message, or email? Add whichever one best suits your brand- just make sure to add a form of contact!
No link to a website
Just like no contact info, not having a link to your website is such a big no-no. You run the risk of people not bothering to try to find you themselves and the ones that do, potentially finding the wrong website. This is also such an easy way to drive more traffic to your website!
No location
If you are a local service or shop having your location is key. Consumers being able to identify your location is a great way for them to know if you are local. You want to make sure you are popping up in their area. Even if you don’t want to put your specific location, adding where you live e.g NZ-based can make a big difference. We know we love supporting local!
Not having a call to action
At this point you might be thinking, I have already run out of room in my bio I couldn’t possibly add anything else. Adding a CTA action won’t be suited for everyone but it can be really beneficial to have. It doesn’t need to take up much room either! It can be as simple as 👇 (& just adding a link):
- Shop now
- Read more
- Book
- Check it out
This can be a great way to lead customers to further information on your products or services without having to try cramming it in your bio or on your IG feed and hoping that they scroll to find it.
Another tip is using emojis to highlight any CTA’s in your bio, this can make them more fun and stand out!
A branded hashtag
Want UGC content? A branded hashtag in your bio can be a super simple way to do this. Just add a hashtag that matches your brand and isn’t being commonly used, e.g “To get featured use #DDM”
Link in bio tool
Overwhelmed by how much content you have to direct customers to, you don’t know which link to use in your bio? Try a link tool that can hold multiple links on it which can be super handy to use on IG posts by adding in the caption “link in the bio to find out more”. Link tools can hold quite a few links, you could have links to your other social accounts, website, blog and more. So if you are too stuck on which link to pick, simply don’t!
Think about your target audience
You only have a short window of time to capture someone’s attention, you need to make an impression within a few seconds to get that follow. Highlight your point of difference! If you can’t think of a reason why someone should invest their time in your biz over another, why would anyone else?
Bullet points can be an easy way to do this. If you are service-focused, listing skills and services you specialise in is another way to go about this.
So if you haven’t already, go take a look at your bio and see where you can make some tweaks. You’ll be surprised at what a simple link or emoji change can do! Don’t waste those 150 characters, make every single one count.
