Instagram blog part 3: how to write the perfect bio

Managing social media accounts requires a well thought out strategy and a good knowledge of your marketing goals. One of the most important social media channels is Instagram, a medium perfectly fit for artists and record labels. Learning all there is to know about Instagram is not as easy as it seems; constantly changing rules by Facebook / Instagram and continuous developments on the technical side make this a challenge, to say the least.

That is why we have made this weekly recurring blog: to help artists and labels improve their Instagram marketing activities.

Last week we spoke about how to create the perfect caption. This week we will cover everything you need to know to create the perfect Instagram bio.

Your Instagram Bio is considered to be one of the most important parts of your entire Instagram account.

The importance of your Instagram bio

Your Instagram bio is considered to be one of the most essential parts of your Instagram page when it comes to attracting new followers, building your brand and guiding your followers where they have to go. An essential part in music marketing. With your Instagram bio you have the chance to make a good first impression. People are most likely to quickly scan your Instagram bio and the content placed on Instagram before making the decision to follow you.

Having an engaging Instagram bio makes the users want to engage with you and your content. That is why it is essential to make use of the 150 characters offered to create a strong call-to-action and spread the message that you want to send out with your brand. In contrast to other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, Instagram does not approve a clickable link in the comment section.

Therefore, your Instagram bio is the perfect place to include a link directed to, for example, your Spotify playlist or website.

Tip: with LinkTree you can add different call-to-actions to your profile and Linkin.bio from Later lets you duplicate your feed and add a link to each post.

The steps to writing a cool Instagram bio

Use keywords for the name field

When writing down your name make sure to write your actual name or artist name, not to be confused with your Instagram username. The name field offers 30 characters, which makes it the perfect source to help you with search engine optimization (SEO).

People who want to look you up will most likely type your name, artist name or the name of your company in the search bar. When writing down your actual name or artist name it makes it easier for people to find you and consistency in your name lets people know that the Instagram profile they are visiting, is credible and is not fake.

Start with the basic descriptions

It is important to include a self-description, hereby you describe yourself and give the people a chance to take a look into the mixture of your personalities. This creates curiosity and interest.

Add a call-to-action

Adding a call-to-action gives you the extra benefit of directing people what they should do next. You could, for example, let them register for your platform, let them buy merchandise or direct them to a new track or album. You can find a good example here:

Add skills and experiences

Describing skills and experiences is important because a bio is the perfect place to let you stand out from the crowd. For people in the music industry, skills as a producer or DJ are valuable to share.

Think about a unique set of skills you own and what might be of interest to your followers. Remember that you not only introduce yourself to new followers, but it is also a chance to allure them into actually following you.

Add your hobbies and interests

Keep in mind to not make your Instagram biogeneric, try to make it as personal as possible. This way your Instagram page does not feel commercialized. Using it to promote your music is fine, but add a personal touch. Adding personal hobbies and interests creates a connection with your followers, which can eventually develop into relationships.

Looking at the example below you can see that RAM mentions he’s a ‘foody’ and ‘world traveller.’ These two hobbies and interests of him make you feel more connected because without him mentioning it, you would never know these characteristics. It shows more of him than just his music career.

Share your contact information

Adding contact information is crucial because it is the only way for your followers to come in contact with you. Placing contact information like an email address on your Instagram bio makes it easier for followers to actually contact you. People tend to write ‘For business enquiries, email [email protected].’ Another contact detail that you can add in the Instagram bio is your phone number. This way people can contact you even quicker.

Another important contact information to add is your website, if you have your own website. This gives people the opportunity to take a look at what you offer. Be sure to create a good landing page.

Include your branded hashtag

A branded hashtag is a uniquely created hashtag that has a relation to you or your new song for example. Your branded hashtag has to be consistent and centred around a topic. You can make it as simple as you want, think about a hashtag created to promote a new song or album via the hashtag.

Try to include humour or cleverness, this will enthusiast the audience and have them talking about it and maybe even share it with their friends and family. Think of the spelling of the word, make sure that it is easy to read and easy to spell.

Branded Instagram hashtag is a good way to help spread the word about what it is that you want to promote or put the focus on. People can share your branded hashtag by placing it as a title on their own content, this way you can create a community. According to a study by Simply Measured, 70% of the most-used hashtags on Instagram are branded hashtags created by businesses.

Keep in mind that the hashtags in your Instagram bio are only clickable on the web and not on the mobile app.

Now that you’ve read about Instagram bio ideas it is time to get creative.

How to get creative with your Instagram bio

Don’t be shy to use Emojis

Did you know that emojis are so popular nowadays that World Emoji Day (July 17th) was created? The use of emojis makes your Instagram bio visually more attractive. Emojis not only look good but are also very helpful when wanting to deliver a message without having to scramble with unnecessary or too many words. Think about which emojis you want to use and ask yourself it the emojis precisely portray what you want to say and if it fits your target group.

Tip: you can easily search for specific emojis on Emojipedia via your computer or laptop.

Use emojis in your Instagram bio as a call-to-action. Look at the given example, the artist has a link to their newest music video as a call-to-action. The CTA is indicated by the arrow emoji pointing towards the link to drive traffic.

Emojis can also be a good way to indicate your contact information and also save space in your Instagram bio.

Since Instagram does not give you the option to change the text format or the text colour, you can bring more colour and diversity in your Instagram bio by using emojis.

Change the text font

Want to stand out from the crowd even more? Think about changing the font of the text in your Instagram bio. The app Textizer gives you the opportunity to choose any font style and apply it to the text. The app gives you access to a lot of different text fonts for not only Instagram but also other social platforms.

Add line breaks to your Instagram bio

Are you not a big fan of having a lot of text in your Instagram bio? Then think about adding line breaks. Adding line breaks is a good way to make the text briefer and more consumable for followers. This is something that can be done by entering “return” in your bio on the web version of your Instagram.