The Instagram bio often is treated as an afterthought—a line or two about your company you hastily fill out when creating your Instagram account.
In reality, your Instagram bio is a valuable social media marketing opportunity that welcomes users to your profile, creates a first impression of your brand, conveys key information about your business, and turns profile visitors into followers and followers into customers.
But aside from writing a catchy company description, how else can you optimize your profile to make the most of your Instagram marketing efforts?
What is an Instagram bio?
An Instagram bio is a short 150-character summary about yourself or your business, displayed to other users underneath your profile photo. Your bio is commonly the first engagement you have with your audience.
Your Instagram bio includes:
A 150-character description that may include contact information or other relevant details about you and your business. You can also use emojis, hashtags, and (with a bit of extra work) even line breaks to create a fun, readable bio that stands out.
One website or external link.
A display name, which you can customize separately from your handle (i.e. John Doe and @johndoe, respectively).
Your Instagram verification badge, if applicable.
How to edit your Instagram bio
To edit your instagram bio, head to your Instagram app and tap the thumbnail of your profile picture at the bottom right. On the next screen, you’ll see an “Edit profile” button, which will take you to your bio section.
Remember, your bio is one of the main things people look at when deciding whether or not to follow you on Instagram—so make every piece of information count.
What your Instagram bio needs to accomplish
It may not seem like you have much room to work with when you consider everything your profile should accomplish. The best Instagram bios will:
Highlight essential information about your business (your brand name, category, etc.), which you can change in your profile settings
Provide Instagram users with a way to get in touch with you
Showcase your brand and your personality, matching your voice and style to your site and other social platforms
Establish your unique selling proposition, helping your target audience understand what makes your brand valuable to them
Drive actions, such as sharing or viewing content, registering for an event, or heading to your site to make a purchase
Luckily, there’s an array of Instagram features you can use alongside your written bio that help cover these considerations and create a profile that helps users quickly understand your business, what you’re selling, and how they can take further action. The tips below will help you understand how to make money from Instagram and drive traffic more effectively with a perfect bio.
Click to jump and browse bio ideas for each industry:
Fashion/apparel
Campbell Cole’s bio has a clear, straightforward brand voice and look that aligns to its other communication channels. This bio also incorporates a simple URL to its main website.
2. Manitobah Mukluks
Footwear brand Manitobah Mukluks has an Instagram bio with a carefully curated visual aesthetic. Complementary Instagram bio photos and Stories thumbnails give it a clean, on-brand look. It also has a Linktree URL.
3. KaiKini Bikinis
KaiKini Bikinis reiterates its brand values and product attributes in its bio. It also provides a link to the brand’s main website.
4. Johnny Cupcakes
Johnny Cupcakes gives followers a peek into founder Johnny Earle’s everyday life. Social proof in the form of a nod from The Boston Globe and plenty of emojis give this Instagram bio the perfect balance of business and fun.
5. iHeartRaves
iHeartRaves also uses emojis, which are particularly appealing to its younger, music-festival-going audience. Its bio further includes a link to its sale items.
Jewelry
6. Patrick Adair Designs
Patrick Adair Designs has a more subtle approach to emojis, using arrows to direct users’ eyes to its Linktree URL. Its Stories go behind the scenes and show off the custom, handmade process that goes into its rings.
7. Beth Macri
Custom jewelry brand Beth Macri has a simple Instagram bio that focuses on its attributes and values—no emojis included. The bio describes the brand and directs users to a Linktree URL.
Beauty and skincare
8. Blume
Blume’s creative Instagram bio is concise, witty, and targeted at women. It also features its main shop page on the brand’s own website, sending people to a page where they can shop directly.
9. Poo-Pourri
Unsurprisingly, Poo-Pourri has one of those funny Instagram bios featuring a completely distinct and on-brand voice, effectively conveying its humor. A Linktree link drives users to important URLs, and it also tells people where to purchase products in-store.
10. Rocky Mountain Soap Company
Rocky Mountain Soap Company uses nature-inspired emojis, in keeping with the company’s products, and hashtags to go along with the theme. The Later link in bio link takes users to a shoppable feed.
11. ColourPop Cosmetics
ColourPop Cosmetics uses its Instagram bio to remind users that its products are cruelty-free. It also lets visitors know where they can find the brand in-store.
12. Love Hair
Love Hair reiterates the benefits of its products and drives users to its website homepage. It also has a Linktree link where users can click to shop.
Technology and electronics
13. Master & Dynamic
Master & Dynamic keeps it minimal with a simple tagline and LikeShop URL. Stories highlight individual products, and the bio is simple and clean—just like M&D’s imagery.
14. Quad Lock
Quad Lock has a uniform, icon-based approach to its Stories thumbnails, with black backgrounds and striking white graphics. Its bio highlights its free shipping policy as well as a link to the brand’s main website.
15. Studio Proper
Studio Proper, which also sells cases for phones and electronic devices, uses the inverse for its Stories thumbnails: a white background with black illustration. Here, the Instagram bio features the brand’s tagline, a brief description of its product attributes, a cross-promotion to its B2B channel, and its website URL.
16. Zero Gravity
Zero Gravity doesn’t skimp on the emojis, even using one to title its Stories. This is the first instance in this list with a link to a Jotform form where customers can submit feedback. This signals to existing and potential customers alike that doing business with ZG would be a positive experience.
Home goods
17. Au Lit Fine Linens
Au Lit Fine Linens has a clean, simple Instagram bio. Clean graphics on a muted background make up the thumbnails for its Stories. “We change the way you sleep,” promises the brand. It uses its clickable link to promote a link in bio URL.
18. St. Frank
St. Frank leads its Instagram bio with a form of social proof: Vogue magazine giving the brand praise for its textiles products. The brand also uses the bio to promote its ethical practices, brick-and-mortar locations, and free shipping policy for qualifying orders.
19. Hem
Like St. Frank, Hem uses its Instagram bio space to promote its brand promise and mission. It also promotes its account dedicated to limited edition products, and includes a link in bio URL.
20. Floorplan Rugs
Floorplan Rugs uses its Instagram bio space largely to promote its bricks-and-mortar locations. It keeps things simple, with the ultimate goal of driving Instagram traffic to become website traffic or foot traffic at its store in LA.
21. Au Lit Fine Linens
Au Lit Fine Linens has a clean, simple brand—and its Instagram bio reflects that. Simple graphics on a muted background make up the thumbnails for its Stories, which curate gift ideas, new products, behind-the-scenes content, and more. “We change the way you sleep,” promises the brand. It uses its clickable link to promote new blog posts, which it updates regularly.
Food and beverage
21. Press London
Press London’s Instagram bio reads like a list of bullet points, which is ideal for a quickly scrolling mobile audience. It reiterates brand values and includes a Linktree URL.
22. Perfect Keto
Perfect Keto seems to use emojis for one reason: to draw users’ eyes to the area it wants to emphasize. Story collections include healthy Keto tips and motivation, podcasts, and recipes, and the URL drives to a specific product page.
23. Ugly Drinks
Ugly Drinks has an Instagram bio with an easy-to-read list approach, emojis that match the playfulness of the brand, and a nod to the causes it supports. It has a Linktree URL and also promotes the brand’s TikTok account.
Miscellaneous
24. Pure Cycles
Pure Cycles has a few key elements that make its Instagram bio one of the best: light use of emojis, well-designed Stories thumbnails, and a link to its website. Like some of the other examples, it also shares a CTA for customers to post UGC and tag the brand.
25. Faucet Face
Faucet Face sells water bottles, but its Instagram bio is about more than just that. It uses emojis and messaging to share the brand’s mission. Stories highlight the brand’s story and how it lives its mission, health and wellness tips, footage from events, and ideas on how to give back to the community.
26. Two Wheel Gear
The Two Wheel Gear Instagram bio has five key elements that make it effective. The bio includes a tagline, description of the products, location, UGC CTA with hashtag, and a Linkpop URL.
27. The Giving Manger
The Giving Manger has used a number of elements in its Instagram bio: a heart-warming and emotional appeal to users, simple emoji, and website URL. Stories give a look into how the product works, what comes in each kit, and traditional ideas to start with your family.
28. Holstee
Holstee is a bright and playful brand, and its bio reflects that. It keeps things simple, with a tagline and link in bio URL—plus minimal but beautiful design for its Stories thumbnails.
Copy and paste templates for your Instagram bio
Template for your Instagram bio
It might help to come up with a rough template for Instagram bios. You can use as many or as few of the following main elements as you like:
Brand tagline
Brand description
Product attributes
Where to shop
Hashtag
Link
CTA
CTAs to copy and paste for your Instagram bio
Shop now 🛒
Shop the sale 🔥
Check out the latest 🔥
View the collection ⬇️
Check out the website
📧 Subscribe
📸 Tag us
Follow for discounts and news!
Tips to create the best bio for Instagram
Before we get into how to make the best Instagram bio, let’s take a look at the elements that make up this part of your profile.
Since you only have a limited number of characters at your disposal, there are a handful of objectives you need to prioritize in your bio before you start optimizing the rest of your profile.
Tell profile visitors who you are and why they should care
However you choose to express it, the first thing your bio needs to accomplish is explaining what your business offers and who you serve.
When new users discover you on Instagram, you quickly need to give them the info they need to stay interested. As on most social media platforms, you won’t have a user’s attention for long, so use concise copy that gets your point across quickly.
For many brands, such as Knix in the example below, that means explicitly spelling out who they are in clear and simple terms.
Think outside the box
Your bio doesn’t need to rely solely on text. You can make it stand out by using:
customized fonts (just copy and paste the text into your bio)
☕️ fun emojis to add personality
↴👇 directional characters or emojis to draw attention to specific parts of your bio, like a clickable link to your website
The following websites are great tools for finding ways to creatively present your Instagram bio. They offer copy-and-paste options for ensuring the code and formatting matches the way you want it to look:
Mind your profile photo
Your profile photo is one of the first things people will notice in your Instagram bio. Make sure you use a high-quality photo or image that is easy to recognize, captures the essence of your brand, and matches your other social networks.
Your logo is often perfect for the profile picture. Keep in mind the minimum profile picture size is 110 by 110 pixels. Stay below 200 by 200 so visitors don’t see a stretched or blurry photo when visiting your profile.
Choose the right username and display name
Your username or handle is one of the most important aspects of your Instagram bio. It’s located at the top of the bio, and determines how people search for your brand. Use your business name if possible. If it’s already taken, make sure that the first part of your username includes your brand name, then add a small detail about your business to make your handle unique (e.g. @yourbrand_us, @yourbrand_men).
You can also add a display name, which will appear below the username and photo in your Instagram profile. Use this field to write out the full name of your business, complete with capital letters and spaces.
Include a call to action
Featuring a call to action in your bio’s copy can be a valuable addition. Strong CTAs significantly increase the likelihood users will take the action you’re describing, because they explain exactly what to do and how to do it.
There are a number of different actions you can prioritize in your bio (you can even squeeze in a couple of different CTAs) so consider what would be most valuable to your business and make room for that.
Here are some approaches you can take with your CTAs:
Be direct: “Click our bio link to shop our latest products.”
Encourage users to share: “Tag #brandedhashtag to be featured.”
Promote a limited time offer: “Shop our Black Friday sale.”
Highlight a contest: “Share your favorite flavor for a chance to win!👇”
No matter the CTA you use, there are a few best practices to keep in mind:
Put your highest priority CTA at the end of the bio. People will be more likely to take that action after you’ve established who you are. Plus, it puts your CTA in close proximity to your link.
Give clear instructions where needed. If you want to get users to contribute to your branded hashtag, opt for something like “Share your unboxing experience with #opensesame” with a clickable hashtag at the end.
Start with the action. Begin your CTA with a verb (Start, Shop, Tag, etc.) to get straight to the point and eliminate unnecessary words.
Keep in mind that you can adapt your bio to promote special events, like a seasonal sale, contest, or upcoming trade show. You can always swap in new CTAs and links to prioritize limited-time offers or events.
Make the most of your bio link
You only get one clickable link within the bio of your Instagram profile. Here, you can add a link for followers to visit your website, a Messenger bot, a specific campaign, or anywhere you want to drive traffic.
Since the vast majority of Instagram users are on smartphones, it’s important to make sure your bio link is optimized for mobile devices. Shopify’s free Linkpop link in bio tool allows you to create a custom URL, connecting your Instagram followers to a mobile-friendly, curated page of important links like your online store, content, products, and more.
Many brands link out to their website’s homepage by default until they have the chance to promote something specific. You can also link to:
Your latest product launch to ride the wave of any other Instagram marketing efforts that bring attention to it
A link curation page, powered by a tool like Linktree, to promote a variety of links
A signup page for a course, email list, contest, etc.
Your latest article or video, if content is at the heart of your business
An event registration page, such as a Meetup or tradeshow
Just be sure to adapt your bio copy to incorporate a CTA for your new link when you add one.
If you want to track how effective your bio link is at driving traffic relative to other Instagram sources, you can use a URL shortener like Bitly, along with UTM tracking, to measure click-throughs.
Whatever you choose, keep your goals in mind and how you’ll achieve them in your business profile and content. You can change your bio link as often as you want and increase its effectiveness by letting users know in individual posts and stories to check out your bio link for more info.
Add “action buttons” to help users reach you
It’s extremely common for users to contact you after they come across your brand on Instagram.
Sometimes they’ll send you a direct message, but if that’s their only option it can quickly become hard to manage. That’s why it’s important to direct customers to your preferred channels, whether it’s a phone number, email, or even directions to your store if you have a physical location.
Filling out your contact information on Instagram shifts most of this responsibility from your written bio to the appropriate “action buttons” that customers can easily find when they visit your profile.
You can do this by editing your profile and tapping Contact Options.
From here, you can enter contact information or channels that make it easy for customers to reach you, such as:
phone number, which you can set for users to either call or text
email address, which will open the user’s default email app, ready to compose a message to the provided address
physical address, which will be converted into directions, allowing users to pull up your business on a map and see where it is in relation to their current location
third-party services to book an appointment, buy a ticket, and more through platforms like Booksy and Eventbrite
People will use the contact information you provide, so only enter information for customer service channels you actually support. If you don’t have a phone line dedicated for customer support, don’t add in your personal phone number just because you want to have something there.
This contact info will appear as clickable buttons on your profile when viewed through Instagram’s mobile app.
Enable Shopping on Instagram to showcase your products
You may have noticed the Shop action button in some of the examples above.
The Shop tab will appear by default after you set up Shopping on Instagram and start tagging images with product tags. You can easily set this up in your own Shopify store.
The Shop tab is also home to all the content featuring your product tags, giving users the opportunity to shop your collection through the photos you’ve posted. They can tap on any of these photos to view them and to learn more about the products featured and tap once more to visit the product page on your website to make a purchase.
Try to only use product tags on photos that clearly show off your products in order to create a carefully curated gallery under your Shop tab.
Curate Highlights for your profile
Instagram Stories are an essential part of Instagram marketing, and Story Highlights are groups of Stories you can present as clickable thumbnails on your Instagram profile. Highlights give Stories a longer lasting presence on your profile, and you get to name and organize them as you see fit.
These Highlights will live in your profile indefinitely, right underneath your bio, above your feed, and when clicked will show the saved Stories one after another. United By Blue has curated Stories for product collections, its environmental cleanups, its online store, news, and press.
Highlights are made up of two parts:
Highlight name: name individual stories as well as thumbnail Highlights
Highlight covers: the custom icon or image that represents the topic of the Story shown in the thumbnail
Not only will your expired Stories of the day be given a longer lifespan, but you’ll be able to feature content that strongly represents your brand at the top of your feed, where users are most likely to see it.
This gives you a chance to control the narrative, and even produce Stories with the express purpose of turning them into Highlights.
Creating Highlights is easy:
Head to your profile page and tap New+ under your bio.
Select all the Stories in your archive that you want to add to this specific Highlight. Choose them based on a specific theme or a narrative you want to convey.
You’ll then be asked to name your Highlight. Note that you only get a maximum of 15 characters, including spaces, so you want to be clear and creative enough to grab attention on your profile.
The last step is to edit the cover image (you can even create a Story to specifically use as your cover), and then your Highlight will be published to your profile. You can add to your Highlights at any time by simply clicking on it and pressing Edit.
There are countless ways you can organize your Highlights, but some of the more common themes include:
Event coverage or event details
User-generated content
Product tutorials
“How it’s made” content
Behind-the-scenes content
Product features or highlights of bestsellers
News and announcements
Share a “social media only” promo code
To give followers extra incentive to jump over to your site and make a purchase, consider putting a coupon code in your bio. Nutriseed does this in its Instagram bio, offering followers 10% off their first order.
Discounts and promo codes are proven conversion drivers. Not only do they drive users to your site to make a purchase, they also give you a more accurate way to track these conversions. Use a code unique in your Instagram bio so you can see exactly how many sales you’re driving.
Then dig deeper into the data and see what those people are buying. Use those insights to inform your Instagram strategy. If there’s lots of interest in a particular product, do a Q&A on your Stories about it. Partner with a local Instagram influencer to promote your brand. The possibilities for insights truly are endless.
Create a great Instagram bio for your brand
As you build relationships with others on Instagram and post new content for your current followers, be sure to check our tips on how to get more Instagram followers and what to post on Instagram. Users are bound to visit your profile out of curiosity or for a quick update about your small business.
With these Instagram bio ideas in hand, you can make a strong first impression on behalf of your brand and convince visitors to stick around for a while, or even follow along.
Ready to create your first business? Start your free trial of Shopify—no credit card required.
Instagram bio FAQ
How many characters are in an Instagram bio?
There are up to 150 characters in an Instagram bio. That seems like a lot of room for your content, and it can be, but your word choice must be concise and impactful.
How do you put a clickable link in an Instagram bio?
To add a link to your Instagram bio:
Open your Instagram mobile app.
Visit your profile by tapping the person icon on the bottom right.
Tap Edit Profile at the top of the screen.
Add a link to your website or landing page in the format of shopify.com.
Tap Done to save your bio.
How do you center an Instagram bio?
To center your Instagram bio:
Open the Notes app on your phone. Create a new note.
Paste your bio and add spaces to it.
Copy the bio from Notes by selecting all (including spaces)
Open the Instagram app and go to Edit Profile.
In the bio section, paste the text.
The amount of spaces you add to the text will dictate if it gets centered or not. If not, go back to Notes and adjust the spaces as you like.
How do you edit an Instagram bio?
To edit your business information on Instagram:
Go to your account.
Tap Edit Profile.
Under Public Business Information you can edit the following: the Facebook page your Instagram account is connected to, business category, and business contact info.
Once you’ve finished updating your business info, tap Done to return to your profile.
How do you add a location to your Instagram bio?
To add the location of your business on Instagram:
Go to your Instagram account.
Tap Edit Profile.
Under Public Business Information you can edit your company location.
Once you’ve finished updating your location, tap Done to return to your profile.
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