Instagram is an incredibly important promotional tool for brands and businesses looking to increase their audience reach and build brand awareness on social media. Creating and sharing engaging Posts, Stories and Reels are what most people think of when it comes to developing your Instagram strategy, but an incredibly important and often forgotten part of promoting your brand on Instagram is creating a great bio.

They play a crucial role in getting more followers and driving more meaningful action from your audience. It's where Instagram users will first go to get a sense of who you are, so it's important you get it right.

It can be hard to know where to start, so to take the pressure off and help you create your perfect Instagram bio, we've put together some expert insights and unique ideas creating the best bio for your business.

The "Instagram bio" section of your Instagram profile is where you may give a brief overview of what you or your brand does. This section has a character limit of 150, so you'll need to be fairly succinct.

As well as your written bio, this section also contains your:

• Username
• Page category
• Pronouns
• Links to external pages
• Contact details

An Instagram bio is the first thing people see, so it should reflect your brand and what it stands for. A bio can compel viewers to take some sort of action, whether it's following your page, viewing your story highlights, sharing your profile with others or following your bio link.

Your bio should be compelling enough to make people want to learn more about you and take further action rather than only looking for a few seconds and losing interest. Here are our top tips on making your bio pop.

To grow your following on Instagram, you'll need a bio that intrigues and engages your target audience. Highlight what makes your brand special, show off your personality and give users a real sense of who your are.

Answering the following questions should help guide you.

• Who does your brand cater to?

• How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?

• What do you want people to know about you?

• Do you want to have a serious or lighthearted tone?

Your bio isn't the most interesting content on your Instagram page. People are more interested in what you post. With this in mind, keep the text in your bio fairly short so users are drawn to the content you post or the link you're promoting.

An optimal business Instagram bio strikes a balance between a short bio and a captivating bio. Try not to use too many lengthy words or emojis.

Take NASA's bio, for example.

Any information that newcomers will need right off the bat should be provided in your bio. This could be:

• Your contact information
• Your address
• Opening hours
• Your shipping locations
• A list of products/services you offer
• A link to your website
• Your business address

If users would normally have to do a Google search or explore your website to find relevant information, putting in your bio can save them a lot of time and effort. The quicker you are to give people the information they need the less likely they are to lose interest, and the greater your chance of converting them into customers.

The key is making it as easy as possible for your customer. Here's a good Instagram bio example:

On Instagram, where pictures are king, emojis can make your bio more interesting and fun. Some businesses might think emojis are too informal, but there are good reasons to use them.

Emojis can make your brand seem more friendly and easy to relate to. By using emojis that fit your brand's personality, you can connect with your audience better. Emojis can also make your bio look more visually appealing. They can break up text and make your bio more eye-catching. They can help you show your audience what your brand stands for.

Think about what type of voice your brand has. Do you have an informal and fun vibe, or are you more informative and serious? If your product is more creative and appeals to a younger audience, you should reflect that in your brand voice. The same applies if you are speaking for a more mature audience.

For example, Nushfoods capture their brand voice in their bio well. They are a small, trendy plant-based food company, so they use a more informal & conversational voice:

Did you know you can set up a shop on Instagram, add a Shop button to your bio, and let users buy your products from inside Instagram?

This makes it incredibly easy for users to make a purchase as soon as you pique their interest without even having to leave Instagram. Make sure you regularly post content about your products to grab attention and use your Story highlights to inspire users who visit your profile to click that Shop button and take action.

Your Instagram bio should also include a valuable keyword or two. You can attract your target audience by strategically including keywords in your Instagram bio. If your bio contains well-chosen keywords, you increase the likelihood that your posts will appear on Instagram users' feeds.

For example, @hasselblad optimizes its bio by including photography and inspiration as keywords. This is useful because when users want to search for photography, terms like "photography inspiration" and "photo inspiration" are very popular.

Here are some strategies for finding keywords to include in your Instagram bio:

• Brainstorm a list of words and phrases that describe your business or niche.

• Use keyword research tools to find out what people are actually searching for.

• Look at the keywords that your competitors are using.

• Organically sprinkle your keywords throughout your bio.

• Use hashtags as keywords.

Utilizing hashtags strategically in your Instagram bio can significantly enhance your brand's visibility and engagement. While simply adding random hashtags won't boost discoverability, incorporating relevant ones tied to your business is key.

A powerful method involves employing a branded hashtag in your profile, as demonstrated by companies like @expedia. This approach not only promotes your brand but also encourages users to contribute user-generated content under a specific hashtag. This user-generated content becomes a valuable source of social proof when potential customers explore your hashtag and see trustworthy relatable product endorsements.

If you use a branded hashtag to collect awesome UGC from loyal customers, did you know you can easily collect, curate and display the content they generate in stylish website galleries with Gleam?

This is an incredibly effective way to showcase a huge collection of engaging user-generated content that will build brand trust and give potential customers the confidence they need to make a purchase.

You can easily showcase these galleries inside your website, or on a landing page you can link to from your Instagram bio. If you want to give users extra incentive to create and share UGC, you can even run engaging photo contests with Gleam and give prizes to customers who submit the best photos.

Just like landing pages, marketing emails and social media posts, your Instagram bio should always include a call to action.

The use of calls to action is crucial to the success of any brand's Instagram profile. The content you post to Instagram is key to attracting an audience, building interest in your brand and promoting your offering, but without a strong call to action you will struggle to harness this excitement and convert your online audience into website visitors and customers.

This is why the link you add to your Instagram bio is so important.

It's an awesome idea to use a tool like Linktree to maximize the number of links you can include in your bio, we've got a blog post covering this here.

To help you make the most of the link in your bio, we've put together some of our favorite bio ideas.

By adding a link to your Instagram bio, you can give visitors easy access to the webpages that matter most to you. If you want to sell more products, take visitors to your store or a special sales page. If you want to generate leads take them to a signup form. The most important thing is that your link aligns with your brand's goals.

Take a look at some of the best ways you can use your Instagram page's bio link:

One of the best links to add to your bio is a simple link to your website. The ultimate goal of a lot of businesses on Instagram is to promote their brand and funnel users from social media into their website, and a nice clear link in your bio is a great way to do this.

Your website is where you can showcase your products or services in more detail, collect leads, and make sales, so there's good reason to send users there. Just make sure your website is mobile optimized so that it looks good and is easy to use on smartphones because that is what the vast majority of users use Instagram on, as opposed to the web version.

Create a sense of urgency and excitement by linking to your current sales events you're running. This is a great way to encourage users to take immediate action and visit your website. Plus, by offering your products at a discounted rate these fresh visitors will be much more likely to take the plunge and make a purchase.

Another effective strategy to drive traffic from Instagram to your website is by offering exclusive discounts to visitors. This not only incentivizes potential customers to explore your website but also provides a compelling reason for them to make a purchase.

With Gleam's Capture app, you can create targeted discount popups that are triggered every time a user visits your website from Instagram. These popups can be used to offer exclusive discount codes to users who sign up with their email addresses. This approach not only encourages immediate sales but also serves as a valuable method to convert your Instagram audience into a pool of engaged email subscribers.

Craft compelling posts that highlight the value of the discounts and include a clear call-to-action directing followers to the link in your bio. Creating a sense of urgency or limited availability can further enhance the appeal of the offer. This approach not only boosts website traffic and sales but also establishes a direct line of communication with your audience through email subscriptions, allowing for much more personalized and targeted promotional efforts in the future.

If you've just released a new product or offering, then promoting it on Instagram and linking right to it from your Instagram bio is an awesome way to get more eyes on your latest release or sale and encourage product discovery and adoption.

A great way to harness your Instagram presence, engage your audience and drive more meaningful user action is by running a promotional giveaway and linking to it from your bio.

A lot of brands run giveaways on Instagram by simply asking their followers to like and comment on a post to enter, but this has a few major downsides.

Firstly, manually counting and validating entries and drawing winners is a hassle, and getting people to like and comment on a post is way less valuable than the powerful actions you can drive by running a giveaway with Gleam.

With Gleam all you need to do is post about your giveaway, get users to follow the link in your bio and start earning entries by completing valuable actions like visiting your website, joining your email list, engaging with your other social media platforms and even referring friends. The key is to promote this giveaway through posts and adding the link to your bio.

Growing your email list is essential for building stronger relationships with potential customers by allowing you to contact them directly to promote your products, share news and offer special deals without relying on third-party platforms like Instagram.

Including a link to your email signup form in your bio is an excellent way to drive email signups. If you have a dedicated page for an email signup form you can send users there, or you can use just send them to your landing page and use Gleam Capture to trigger email signup popups when people follow your bio link.

With this easy template from Gleam you can create and customize your own email signup form and trigger it when people visit from Instagram or any other source you're driving traffic from.

If you have a blog that you want to promote on Instagram, then make sure that you're linking to it from your bio. You may want to link to your blog's homepage, latest blog post or your latest post.

This is a great way to showcase your expertise and attract new readers from Instagram.

Instagram provides its own native tool for adding up to 5 links to your bio, but several third-party platforms like Linktree offer some additional features you might find valuable.

• More links: Linktree allows you to add an unlimited number of links to your landing page. This means you can promote all of your most important pages and resources in one place.

• Customization: Linktree allows you to customize the appearance of your landing page. This includes changing the colors, fonts, and layout to match your brand.

• Analytics: Linktree provides analytics so you can see which links are being clicked the most. This can help you track your marketing efforts and make sure you're directing your followers to the most relevant pages.

• Social media icons: Linktree makes it easy to add social media icons to your landing page. This makes it easy for your followers to connect with you on other platforms.

• Email signups: Linktree allows you to add an email form to your landing page. This can help you grow your email list.

When you add an important link to your Instagram bio, you have to remember that Instagram users aren't likely to stumble upon it by accident. Sure, there will be users who like your content and click-through to your profile to learn more, but you also need to make sure you tell your followers about the links in your bio.

Make sure you post content that will create hype and send users running to your bio. This works especially well for sales, promotions, and giveaways. Give users a clear call to action by telling people to follow the link in your bio in your post captions, videos, reels and even your stories.

LIKEtoKNOW.it is a mobile app that seamlessly connects influencers and their followers, making it easier than ever to discover and purchase products featured in social media posts. When an influencer showcases a product they love, they can easily tag it using LIKEtoKNOW.it. This generates a clickable link in their bio that will connect followers with all the products they've promoted.

LIKEtoKNOW.it offers tons of upside for both influencers and shoppers. For influencers, it presents a lucrative opportunity to monetize their content and earn commissions on sales generated through their links. For shoppers, it provides a convenient and straightforward way to find and purchase products they want.

A well-crafted Instagram bio helps brands achieve their goals, whether they're related to growing their following or increasing sales. This 150-character section can include the most vital phrases, symbols, and links that can increase your reach. Using all these tips and tricks and instagram bio ideas as examples, you should be ready to craft your perfect business bio and use it to drive meaningful action and convert casual fans into loyal customers.

Another awesome way to make your profile stand out is to add all of your important stories into story highlights. Make sure you label them all with appealing titles so people are more tempted to click through. It is a nice way to complete your profile page with everything you want your audience to see. Here is a great example: