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Effective Instagram bios immediately convey value to the visitor.

To market effectively on Instagram, you must know your target audience and how they're using Instagram. Your bio should be written in a way that connects with the people in that specific demographic. Determine the characteristics that you most want to connect with in that audience and write your bio accordingly. For example, in Figure 2-4, the target audience is people who want to learn about video marketing and how to create their own videos. The bio is written to appeal to that audience.

      The Instagram bio is limited to 150 characters, including spaces. The bio is designed to be one single paragraph of information, but you can use formatting techniques to add spaces and line breaks.

      

If a bio is too long to fit on the profile page, a More link appears. Tap this link to view the full bio on the screen.

      

Because Instagram was designed to be used on a mobile device, it’s best to format your bio on a mobile device so that you retain the correct formatting and alignment. If you write your bio as a paragraph, it will have different line breaks on a computer because its screen width is wider than a screen on a mobile device.

Include the emojis and symbols on your device’s keyboard in your bio to create visual appeal and to better connect with your audience. To add emojis, you must open the emoji keyboard on your mobile device. An iOS user should tap the smiley face at the bottom of the keyboard. An Android user can tap the smiley face to the left of the spacebar. (If you don't see a smiley face, tap and hold down on the globe icon to display a pop-up menu, where you can select the smiley face icon.)

      Instagram is a visual platform, and having icons in the bio helps yours stand out from others. You have many emojis to choose from. If the traditional funny face and cartoonish emojis don't translate to your brand's style, use simple emoji symbols such as squares, diamonds, triangles, and arrows to add color and visual content without detracting from your professional style.

Generally, hashtags are not a good idea in Instagram bios. If people click the hashtag in your bio, your profile page closes and the hashtag gallery results appear instead. The exception is if you have a unique branded hashtag. For example, @shopgifted encourages followers to use the #thisisgifted hashtag to have their photos showcased on their account (see Figure 2-5). We talk about using hashtags on Instagram in Chapter 8.

      © @owenvideo

      FIGURE 2-4: The Instagram bio for @owenvideo is designed to appeal to people interested in video marketing.

      Formatting your bio

You can edit or create your bio by tapping the Edit Profile button in your Instagram profile. In the Edit Profile screen, shown in Figure 2-6, go to the Bio field and insert the text for your bio. Save any changes when you're finished. Please note that Figure 2-6 shows the setup for a business profile.

      Android users can format a bio completely in Instagram. If you want to include line breaks and spacing, tap the Return or Enter key (on the keyboard of your mobile device) at the end of the line.

      © Gifted

      FIGURE 2-5: A hashtag in your Instagram bio can be helpful for branding.

Your bio can be edited and rewritten as often as you want. It's a best practice to review your bio every six months and verify that the information is still accurate and relevant. If something should be revised, go through the editing steps used to set up your initial bio to change the text.

      If you run marketing campaigns or have seasonal content or promotions, you can update your bio to align with these events.

      Using a call to action to drive website traffic

      The last line of your bio should be a call to action (CTA) that directs visitors to click the URL listed below it. (We cover this URL setup in the next section.) The call to action should be clear, actionable, and specific to the action you're asking visitors to do.

      Do not simply write Visit our website or Click below. Instead, use something like Get your free ebook here or Shop our new styles now. Include a down-arrow emoji at the end of the CTA that points to where the URL will appear in the bio (refer to the example in Figure 2-4).

      As with the rest of your bio, the CTA can be edited as often as you like. Experiment with different wording to determine which drives the best number of clicks to your website.

      FIGURE 2-6: Add your bio in the Edit Profile screen.

      Choosing a website link that encourages clicks

      The most effective way to generate website traffic from Instagram is the link in your bio. To maximize your website traffic, make sure that the URL in your bio takes visitors to the exact page you're promoting. For example, if you're promoting an opportunity to sign up for your newsletter but the link goes to your website home page where there's no place to sign up, you'll lose potential registrants. In this case, you want the link to go directly to the website page where the signup form is located, making it easy for your Instagram audience to sign up quickly.

Your URL can be updated or changed as frequently as you like. You might have a default web page for your profile but change it to coincide with a promotion or campaign you're running on Instagram. After that campaign is complete, you can change the link back to your default.

      

To accurately track your Instagram traffic, you need to do more than upload a direct link to your website. If someone clicks the link in your bio from Instagram on the desktop, Google Analytics records it as referral traffic from Instagram. When someone taps the link in Instagram on a mobile device, a new browser is opened. Google Analytics doesn't properly track that traffic for you. Instead, it considers opening the new browser direct traffic, not social media referral traffic.

      Although Google Analytics is tracking that traffic for you, it's categorizing it alongside all other direct traffic to your site, not as a click-through from Instagram. As a result, you may look at your website traffic and be convinced that Instagram is not driving any significant traffic, when it may be sending much more traffic than you're aware of.

      To correct this, use a link shortener that provides trackable data on the number of clicks. The link shorteners Bitly, goo.gl, and Rebrandly are the most reliable and safe options. Each provides a data analysis of each link to enable you to track how many clicks you're generating.

      To use a link shortener, follow these simple steps:

      1 Find your long-form URL (the direct link from your website) and copy it.

      2 Open the link shortener website of your choice.

      3 Paste the long-form URL in the link shortener website.The link shortener generates a short link.

      4 Customize

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