If you want to grow your Instagram account, you can't go past a stellar bio.
Your bio is your business card on Instagram, your first impression,
the first thing people read and see and what will make them stick around and
follow you - or leave because they don't understand what your Instagram account
is all about and why they should follow you in the first place. Not only that,
but a few elements of your bio are also searchable,
meaning that if you optimize it well,
people can find your Instagram profile on the platform when they search for a
specific word, phrase or keyword, which is kind of a big deal.
That's why in today's video we'll go over the five elements of a perfect
Instagram bio so you can get more followers, and, most importantly,
more eyes on your handmade products and ultimately more sales. Let's dive in.
Bonjour!
My name is Deb and I'm a handmade business coach and the founder of Tizzit.co,
a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners just like yourself.
Today's video is going to be a little different than what I usually do.
I'm going to actually share an entire lesson from my full "Instagram for makers:
from a to sales" course,
walking you step-by-step in creating your bio and sharing examples and
inspiration of makers who are doing it right along the way.
But before we jump in,
I just wanted to let you know quickly that you'll hear me say things like
"you-centric", "brand-centric" and "community-centric" in this lesson.
These are concepts that I defined in a previous lesson of the course when I help
you pick a strategic archetype for your shop's Instagram account.
But don't worry about it, you will still get a ton of value from this video,
even without having done this previous exercise. So without further ado,
let's go.
Welcome back to module two, lesson two, the perfect profile bio.
Your Instagram bio is your Instagram business card.
It helps people who visit your profile understand what it's about,
what they can and should expect from it,
and it gives you an opportunity to have a clickable link,
the one and only clickable link that you have.
So there are activities in the workbook here to help you define what your bio is
going to be.
You can either follow along and pause the video every step of the way so that
you build your profile bio as I teach you how to,
or you can just watch it all first and then go to your workbook,
but make sure that you do those activities.
Let's start with what are we talking about when we are talking about the profile
bio.
This is really what a profile page looks like and so the bio is kind of like
this pink block at the top here.
Because we're going to be talking about what's highlighted on your screen right
now, which are really your Instagram stories highlights, in a separate lesson,
we are not going to talk about it right now and we are going to be focusing
exclusively on this part of your profile bio instead.
So what is it made up of? First, a profile picture;
second, a username, which is really what we call your handle or your @.
So this is what people would use to mention you and to tag you in captions and
comments for example. The next element is your name,
your bio itself, which has a maximum of 150 characters,
which is quite short. And then finally your link in bio.
So let's take it step by step. First, your profile picture.
It really is just a small circle image. You have two options here.
It's pretty straightforward.
Either you're going to use a picture of yourself so it's more personal and it's
a portrait or you might use your logo if you want to have an account that
reflects more your brand, your business, or a community.
So let's look at a few examples.
If you decide that you want to have your portrait,
your profile picture as the profile picture for your account,
then make sure that it's not a picture of your full body,
that you're not from head to toe and that you're not too far away because it's
so tiny people won't actually be able to see and recognize you.
And also the opposite is true,
so you don't want to be too zoomed into your face.
Ideally you want to have something that looks like those three pictures on your
screen right now. If you pick option two and you want to use a logo instead,
maybe because your brand archetype is brand-centric or community-centric,
then make sure that there is no small text on that small picture, again,
because it is so small that if there is text that's too small on there,
it's not going to look too good. So keep it simple.
Think of using your brand mark instead of your logo if your main logo doesn't
work. For example,
for Tizzit (I actually use my profile picture for Tizzit) my main logo is
rectangular, so wouldn't really work in a square or in a circle,
and so I would use my brand mark for that, which is just a stamped letter T (for
Tizzit). So if you have a brand mark - use that instead.
Here are some examples of what it could look like. Next,
let's talk about your username and your name.
Your username and your name are the only two searchable fields in your profile
and on Instagram in general,
meaning that you have to think of what people would search to find you on the
platform and make sure as much as possible that it is being used for your name
and your username. Your username is your handle,
it is your @ on the platform.
It usually is your shop or your brand's name,
but it could also be your own name if you are a personal brand.
Think of it as your main title. We want to keep it simple.
We want to make it easy to read,
we want to make it easy to type and easy to remember.
You can use punctuation to help,
but you can't use your URL - that's actually in the terms of use of Instagram.
For example, I had for a while @tizzit.co as my username,
but I've changed that to @tizzitco without the dot because my actual URL is
tizzit.co and that's against their terms.
So if you don't want to have your account suspended don't put as your username
@myshop.com because that isn't tolerated.
Your name needs to complement your username.
You can think of it as your subtitle or your subheading.
And here again you want to think of search here.
So think back to that Instagram sales funnel that we covered in the first
module.
We're talking about being discoverable here and your username and your name
really are your two options for that.
Even the text that's going to be in your profile bio in that little paragraph
below your username and your name won't be searchable.
So these two fields are very important.
So beyond what you've already used for your username,
what do you want to be found for? It could be your personal name,
it could be a brief keyword packed description of what your account is about.
Let's look at a few examples together. This first one is @bubbahboutique.
That's obviously the shop name, the brand name.
I'll actually make a little side note here that the logo is a little bit too
small and that we can't really see what is written there,
so that's something that I would change, but going back on topic,
username and name,
Bubbah boutique is the shop's name and below in the name she's used that as a
way of describing what the shop is about and also for being found for terms like
"handmade" and "luxe" and "baby" and "boutique".
Second example is @heartandtableco.
That's obviously the name of the Etsy shop as well, so it's the brand's name,
but because she's probably thought, you know,
people actually know me by my name too and they might be searching for my name
instead, she's put in the name: Emily Latham. And then last example,
@natanazarian.
Because she's a personal brand and it is very much a you-centric account,
she has used both for her username and for her name, an actual personal name.
Let's look at your bio next,
so that little paragraph below your username and your name that is maximum 150
characters. It's small and it needs to have two parts.
The first one is a description of your account and the second part is your call
to action. So let's look at the first part: description.
There are really three description styles. The first one is introduction,
the second is statement and the third is rally.
Now what do I mean by that? Well,
a description that's got an introduction style sounds like this:
"Hey I'm Emily. I make cozy things with pretty yarn.
My shop is filled with luxury knits that will keep your head warm and your heart
warm too" or "mum of three, wife, dog cuddler".
So these are really descriptions that are best suited when you have a
you-centric account and you are a personal brand.
A rally description on the other end is a better fit if you have the
community-centric account, like Rising Tide Society for example,
that described themselves in their bio as "a community of 75,000 creative
entrepreneurs with 430 monthly meetups worldwide". The next example is
Houseplant community and they say: "we love plants,
use our hashtag to be featured" or, and we've talked about that one already,
Like-minded bitches drinking wine:
"entrepreneurial girl gang who love to discuss their growing empires over many
wines". It's more about rallying people together,
what makes you a community - and is a better fit, again,
if you are a community-centric account.
Finally we have the statement style description,
which is better suited if you are a brand-centric account.
So for example, Madewell says: "good day starts with great jeans,
read our stories and shop our feed". Bannor toys says:
"wood toys for modern parents and kids encourage open-ended play and
imagination". Mossery: "maker of thoughtful stationary.
Everyone can create with Mossery. We ship worldwide".
So these are really more facts and statements about what the mission behind the
brand is, what they actually do and what the values are.
When it comes to deciding what kind of description you're going to have think
back to your archetype because it needs to make sense with your archetype.
What type of account do you have and how do you need to introduce it to people
who've never heard of you before?
It needs to clearly explain what the account or the shop is about and it needs
to make potential followers understand what they'll get by following your
account. Last tip is: please don't overthink it.
You can change this really easily. In fact, if you want,
you can change it every day. I don't recommend that,
but you will probably change it regularly as you find better ways to express who
you are and what your account is about in under 150 characters.
So don't overthink it, you can change it. Just pick one and move on for now.
And finally, last tip is actually just about how it looks.
Make it more readable by using line breaks and emojis.
That's really important.
Now the second part of your bio paragraph is your call to action,
and that's the last sentence, the last line of your bio.
And it should be dedicated to a call to action.
It's located just above your one and only clickable link, your link in bio,
so we need to use it to encourage people to click that link in bio.
It can be generic or it can be timely. And remember here again,
this is something that you can change as often as you want to.
You can use emojis to emphasize the link below visually,
like arrows pointing down. That's something that I would recommend too,
but for now, let's look at a few examples of what this could be.
Depending on what people would get if they click the link in your bio,
you might want to say:
"free shipping this way" or "shop my Etsy" or "grab your free pattern" or "get
10% off your first order" or "Black Friday sale is on now.
Click to shop" or "check out the summer collection".
So the two last ones are more timely and the four first examples are more kind
of generic.
This will of course depend on what the actual link in your bio is going to be
and where it's going to take people. So let's talk about that next.
This link in your bio is the one and only link that people can click on your
account that you can customize so you can take them anywhere you'd like.
It's a crucial step in your Instagram sales system.
Now there's lots of possible options here and you might actually want a
different link every time you post.
Because say you post a picture of your latest product collection,
you might want the link in your bio to be taking people to that product
collection.
What if you post a picture with a caption that talks about your latest post,
where you're talking about your latest pattern that you're selling - maybe you
want the link in your bio to take people to that exact pattern.
So the problem here that we're having is that we have only one link so we can't
have something that's too broad, like the general homepage of your shop,
and we can't have something that's too specific like this one product because
you will need to change it all the time and every time you post and that's
really not practical. So here are my two recommended options.
First is to use that link to take people to a landing page.
I'll explain in a second what that is.
That's probably what 98% of you are going to do.
And the second option is to link to a clickable version of your feed.
So let's look at option one, the landing page.
A landing page is a page that you create just for Instagram to direct users to
where they want to go. Typically it offers a choice of several links,
so when you click on that landing page,
there's actually a selection of links that they can click on. To build it,
you can either use your website builder and create a really simple page on it
just for Instagram, or you can use a tool like Linktree,
Campsite or Milkshake, all of which are linked in your workbook.
Let's look at a few examples. The first one on the left here is mine,
and that's something that I've built with my website builder.
I didn't use a tool for this,
it's actually a page on my website that you can access if you go to
tizzit.co/instagram.
It's obviously not on my website in my menu or in my navigation bar.
It's kind of hidden there and I just use it on Instagram so that people can find
the links that I most often refer to in my posts.
The two pictures on the right are from Campsite and from Linktree which are
tools that help you build those landing pages really easily so that you can
offer from this one link in bio a couple of different links once people click on
it.
Now the pros of using a landing page are that it allows you to direct people
toward different links via the one link in your bio.
It's highly customizable because you can decide which links you want to have on
that landing page and it's really easy to create and to change as needed.
The only problem with it though is that it's not great for linking to a specific
product listing or to a very specific article on blog because you don't want to
have hundreds of links on that landing page. It becomes just too overwhelming.
So generally what you would do is add a link to your blog homepage or to your
product category or to your shop,
but not necessarily to specific product listing.
Now let's look at the second option for that link,
which was using an app that allows you to turn the link in bio in a clickable
version of your feed. What does that even mean?
Well there are apps and tools out there that allow you to recreate a version of
your Instagram feed where each image is clickable.
The best known tool for this is called linkin.bio by Later.
I'll link to it in your workbook as well. Here's what it does.
This is an account called @meundies and if you see the link in bio,
it actually says linkin.bio/meundies. If you click on it,
it will open a page that looks exactly like the feed - like this.
So you might actually think that you're still on this Instagram account,
but you're not.
You are on a separate page that just looks exactly like the feed.
And so what's great here is that this time when they click on an image on the
picture on the right, they are being redirected to a link of your choosing.
That's a great option if you post a lot of product images because then each
image can be linked to that one specific product listing.
It's also great if you want to refer to a specific video or a specific blog
post, but it's not so great for a few reasons.
The first one is that usually those tools are paid.
The second one is that Instagram is actually coming up with a feature called the
shoppable feed,
which we'll dive into in the next lesson that may make this option not so useful
after all.
And then the last thing that I think isn't too great with that option is that
when people click on the link in your bio and this page opens that looks exactly
like the feed,
they have to remember what picture they were looking at to find the link that
they want to click.
And so it's not necessarily super user friendly in my opinion.
So it's workbook time. We've worked through a lot of steps together,
but it's time to put it all together so that you can build your perfect profile
bio. In the next lesson I'm going to talk to you about your bucketing strategy,
which I'm really excited about.
If you'd like to dive deeper and learn more on how to really make Instagram work
for your shop,
I really recommend you check out the link below this video and take a look at
the full "Instagram for makers: from a to sales course" in it.
You'll learn a ton more strategies like the archetype strategy to help you
define what type of Instagram account makes the most sense for your specific
shop,
the bucketing strategy to help you come up with photos and captions that sell
easily so you never wonder what to post and know that what you're posting is
going to get you comments and likes;
the Instagram sales system that you need to have in place on your account to
turn followers into customers because you can't take followers to the bank;
the 20 minutes boost method that will keep you on top of the algorithm and
gaining new followers every day and so much more.
So make sure to check out the link below and au revoir!