Optimising Your Instagram Bio

When you’re in a little bubble, entirely focused on producing content and wrapped up in the inner-knowing of your business, it’s often hard to step back and look at your online presence with fresh eyes. To ask — how will a new visitor to my site view my business ethos? Is my Instagram in its current form attracting my ideal customers? Can patrons find all the information they need to visit me?

In light of this, we’ve created a super quick guide on how to optimise your Instagram to find your businesses’ biggest supporters.

1. First up, you gotta have a clear understanding of who you love.

When you close your eyes and see someone walk into your cafe, what kind of person are they? Do they want their coffee to-go as soon as possible, or are they visiting after the beach for a leisurely chat with the barista and a good old bacon and egg roll?

Essentially, no matter what your business is, in order to appeal to your ideal customer (without losing your businesses’ already established personality and ethos) you need to be able to quantify the traits of this archetypal person and then match your branding and online presence to be something they would immediately want to follow (online) and visit (in real life).

2. Get the basics right.

Okay, you’d be surprised how easily this is forgotten but… if you are a physical business, please do include your address (through Instagram’s tool, as it takes them straight to maps) and opening hours (in your bio text), plus also details on how to book a table (e.g. using Instagram’s “book now” or “reserve now” tool). It’s super unlikely your viewers are going to dig around for info about your business. So, it’s pretty much imperative that everything is easily accessible.

Second, we would suggest (especially if you sell things online, have seasonal products, or host events), setting up a free link manager such as Linktree to make it incredibly simple for a new visitor to navigate through all the different facets of your business. It could also be worthwhile looking into Instagram Shop.

Also, don’t forget to update the info in your bio or Linktree if anything changes!

3. Get cre-ATE-ive.

Infuse some of your personality into your bio. This is easily done through your branding (which you can upload as your profile photo), and your bio copy. Tell everyone why you’re there and what you do in your brand’s tone of voice. You only have a few words, so make them count!

Think, something like:

Slinging your favourite flattys in the neighbourhood, daily from 7-3. We’ll see you there.

Wine, wine and more wine. Also pizza. Come find us, Tue-Sun 5 till late.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezey. No really. Life gave us lemons and now we make lemonade, daily 9-2.

4. Use your story highlights.

Take advantage of these short snippets and curate your folders so everything can be found easily. This is perfect for showing off past events, or what everyday looks like at your restaurant. You can even use branding elements to create covers for each of these highlights to make everything more uniform!

That’s about all from us, but if you’re so inclined, leave a comment with the IG handle of your favourite IG account that has their bio-game on point, or include your updated bio. We’d love to see it.

This article was written by our in-house Pinterest co-ordinator and blog writer, Krishaa Tulsiani.