5 Instagram Bio Tips and Tricks More Followers and Sales!

I'm going to show you a few Instagram bio tricks and tips that you can use to optimize your bio to get more followers and more engagement on your account.

These Instagram Bio Tricks will include:

How To Choose Your Instagram Name

How To Format Your Instagram Bio

How To Use A Call To Action In Your Instagram Bio

How To Create A Trackable Instagram Bio Link

How To Optimize Your Instagram Profile Photo

This is actually going to be the first blog post in a series of about four, maybe five posts that I'm going to share with you over the next several weeks.  So be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don't miss a tip!

These will all be Instagram hacks, Instagram tips, and Instagram tricks for your business so that you can optimize your account for success.

1. How To Choose Your Instagram Name

One thing I want to bring to your attention right away is that you have two names on Instagram. You have an Instagram "username" and an Instagram "name".

To edit these details, just click on the "edit profile" button. Now your username should be the name of your business, or your brand. However, your Instagram "name" is searchable, so you want to include keywords in your "name" to help you get found by people who don't already follow you.

Now, I know a lot of people like to put things in there like I'm an expert at this or a guru at that, but it's not going to help you get found.  And if you are a new or smaller account, it's important to optimize your name to try to get new Instagram followers using keywords.

You want to use keywords that people are actually searching for as it relates to the type of business you have or the type of service that you provide.

To show you how this works start typing a search term in your own Instagram account and take a look at the results.  For my example, I type "social media marketing tips" and the top results include people, tags, and places.

My goal is that when you type in "social media marketing tips", I want you to see my name and my account because you're actually searching for that service, or you're searching to find social media tips and that's where I want to be found.

What you'll notice when you start doing these types of searches and you examine the people who show up in the top results, they have those same keywords that you searched for.  This can be a very powerful way to get discovered by NEW people.

2. How To Format Your Instagram Bio

A tool/website that I use to format my Instagram bio is WordCounter.net. Wordcounter does just that, it counts the words and number of characters that you enter.

With your Instagram bio, you've got 150 characters to tell your story and Wordcounter is an easy way to make sure you have the correct number of characters for your bio.

You should also include emoji's in your bio as they relate to your business.  It's a great way to lighten up your bio and even add a little humor.

Another site that I love to use to quickly find emojis is called emojipedia.  emojipedia allows you to just type in the name of an emoji you are searching for and viola', the results appear!  I love this because I don't have to search very long to find the just right emoji.

When you are formatting your bio, be sure to include what you do, and how you can help someone in those 150 characters. You want to show really quickly how you can help someone, what services you provide or what products you have to offer.

This is not an area to try to stuff keywords in because it's not going to help you. This area isn't very searchable, except for the hashtags, and @ features to follow other accounts. and I'll get into that in another post.

3.  How To Use A Call To Action In Your Instagram Bio

The next thing you want to do is give a call to action. This is a great way to lead people away from Instagram so that you can get them on your email list.  You can also use a call to action to promote your blog, your YouTube channel, e-commerce store or anything else you choose to promote.

For my call to action, I have "get freebies and tips". I like to give away a lot of different things like PDFs, checklists, tips and more.  By the way, if you are not already following me, feel free to follow me on Instagram @yourmarketinglady

Try to make it clear why someone should click on your link.  Give them a good reason or incentive.

4.  How To Create A Trackable Instagram Bio-Link

After you've created some type of call to action, you'll want to have a trackable link that takes them to that great offer, product, post or freebie!

On Instagram, you have one link in your bio that's clickable, so you'll want to make the most of that link.

There are actually several tools and sites that will even allow you to add multiple links to your Instagram bio.  The one I like to use is called Linktree.

It's free and easy to set up multiple links in your bio.  They do offer some tracking stats as well.

I also like to use Bit.ly, it's also free and provides you with some analytics detailing the number of clicks within a given time period.  Google also has a free link shortener as well.

5. How To Optimize Your Instagram Profile Photo

To optimize your Instagram profile photo, first of all, make sure you use the correct dimensions. Ideally it should be 180px by 180px.

Also, use an up-close photo that clearly shows your face, avatar or logo and make it's clear and in high-resolution.

I see so many people's photos, it might be of them standing up, blurry or really unclear on mobile devices.   

I would say if your logo represents your brand, use your logo. If it's you, use a  close-up photo.

I have an avatar that represents my brand. I use this avatar everywhere. It's high-resolution and it's recognizable if you know and follow my brand.

The best advice I can give here is just to keep your profile photo consistent across all of your social media networks and make sure that you use clean, hi-res images that can be clearly seen on mobile devices.

Bonus Instagram Bio Tricks 

Another quick Instagram tip, don't just set it and forget it. Try different things. Even with the change of seasons, you could update your Instagram Bio.

Try to add different hashtags and different keywords.  I know I've done that on numerous occasions just to get a feel for how things work.

What's your favorite Instagram bio trick or tip?  Let me know what you think in the comments below.