HOW TO BUILD A BIO/ PROFILE THAT GENERATES BUYERS on Instagram
“The most dependable and consistent way to generate wealth is to turn advertising into profit.” Jeremy Mcgilvrey
Your profile is the text found on your Instagram page located directly below your logo. Now you don’t have a lot of time here to make a good impression, you only have a few lines and that is it. Long form sales copy has no place in your bio/ profile and it will repel more followers than it will attract.
There is a systematic way by which I chose to set up my bio/ profile. You can use my template as a general guideline and try out different versions of your Instagram profile until you get it right. One of the great things about Instagram is how rapidly you can test ideas and get feedback on whether they are working or not.
Let’s cover a few things that are integral to your Instagram bio/ profile:
Bullet Points: You want your profile to feature bullet points and your phrases should occupy a single line. Your bio needs to be easy to read and right to the point. Play around with bullet points to get the ones that look clean and professional.
Concise: Since you are only focused on one line at a time, you have no choice but to keep things super simple. This makes your job a lot easier and people will be able to read your Instagram profile with ease. This way, there is no confusion whatsoever regarding your Instagram page and why it exists.
In summation, your bio/ profile on Instagram should be clean and organized with content that people can absorb easily and quickly.
Right beneath your logo will be your profile name, which is separate from your actual page name. You can simply choose to re-state your page name unless you have something specific that you are focused on (ex. “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed”).
On the line below that, you can have a marketing message if it is consistently used across your marketing. For example, if I was Nike, I could put “Just Do It”in this line.
Once your profile name and tagline are intact, you’re ready to move on to the core of your Instagram profile. Each and every line here counts, so pay close attention!
Your first line needs to be about your WHY –why you created your brand. You want to generate curiosity and interest for the potential followers that are visiting your page. For example, @ElevateYourMindset has “Empowerment for Elevated Mindsets.”This speaks directly to who I want to attract as my core follower base. It also creates a sense of community because the potential follower might feel included if they believe they have an elevated mindset. This is vital and you want to find something about your brand’s ‘why’that people can relate to and feel apart of.
Next, you want to focus on your WHAT. What is it that you are doing? What is it that you want people to do? If you are promoting a product, you should be direct and upfront about it. “Check out my latest confidence course”is direct and you are generating curiosity about this course in a simple way. Your Instagram profile is a great place to drive people to the link where your product is located (if it already has a website set up for it). You can easily MONETIZE your product or service this way!
I’ve personally found that if you have a finger emoji pointing down to your link, it serves as a strong and visual call to action for your followers to click the link and learn more about your products and services. You need to put a lot of thought into how you structure your bio if you want to drive traffic to your website or sales funnel.
Finally, the way you post the link in your bio/ profile is crucial. People need to see your link and know that they are getting exactly what is advertised in your bio. If you have a product about confidence, the word ‘confidence’should appear somewhere in the URL of your link. This means that if you are using a link shortening service like Bit.ly you need to put your product name in that URL. DO NOT put something like: bit.ly/ 2lrKZn5b. People will think it’s a scam and they will not click on it. The link should look like: Bit.ly/ Self-Confidence-Tips
Also, if you can, leave the “www”out and capitalize the first letter of the word in the name of your link “NameOfWebsite.com.”I’ve found that I’ve got the highest number of clicks when links were simplified and spelled out with the first letter capitalized this way.
You generate curiosity, you establish your purpose, you guide them to your link through your call to action so they can learn more about that intriguing thing in your bio. If your sales funnel is setup properly, it will handle the rest. (In Chapter 21 we’ll talk a lot more about setting up your sales funnel correctly). You can use your link to generate leads, build your email list, and make money!
Above all, your profile/ bio has to reward the people who take the time to visit it and click on the link. The old school days of baiting people are over. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, you have to offer MASSIVE VALUE instead.
Here are a few more common tips that you should follow when creating your profile/ bio:
4-LINE MAXIMUM
Unless you absolutely have to, keep your bio to four lines or less. And always make sure the product in the link is consistent with your shoutouts and promotions. If you have a link in your bio, it MUST match up with the website link of the product or service that you are promoting. Promoting a video course only to drive people to an ebook will kill your traffic stream. People already know what they want before they visit your website and shattering that expectation will hurt your brand and drastically reduce your conversions. Moreover, your profile/ bio has to be consistent with your promotion. Congruency in this Instagram-style sales funnel is key! People do not have the time or the attention span to try and figure out what you are promoting and they will simply move on to the next page if you lack congruence. The design in the promotion and your website or sales funnel needs to match. Once you have your ad/ shoutout ready, you need to make sure that the design in your promotion AND marketing message are consistent. The messaging (i.e. your copy) and the color scheme need to match. I have seen my best conversion rates when I’ve kept these two things consistent in the promotion, bio AND website/ sales funnel.
This means that your website or sales funnel, if that’s your marketing vessel, needs to be highly visual (you’ll learn a lot more about this throughout this book). People are accustomed to high-quality design and are extremely turned off by poor visuals, especially coming directly from Instagram which is filled with highly visual content. A lack of clean and crisp visuals will lead to low conversions. If your objective on Instagram is to get people to opt-in to your landing page or buy your products and services you will be extremely disappointed in your results if you design your webpages with low quality and/ or pixelated images.
PUT YOUR CONTACT INFO ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR PROFILE/ BIO Giving your followers a method to contact you directly is a great way to build long-term relationships and MAKE SALES. If you want to be contacted by email, list your email. If you want to be contacted by DM tell your followers that. Many Instagram Influencers like to communicate through the free app KIK, so that may be an option for you as well. Just make it abundantly clear how people who visit your Instagram page can contact you.
HAVE A STATEMENT THAT GIVES CREDIT TO PHOTOGRAPHERS
Some Instagram accounts, depending on the niche (ex. Continual reposts) might be subject to copyright infringement. If you will be reposting other people’s Instagram content I highly recommend you put a “credits to all owners or photographers”statement at the top of your profile/ bio.
This will help safeguard your page from getting banned by Instagram. Understand that your overall focus is to build a simple and clean bio/ profile that’s easy to read quickly. To achieve this you may need to use separators to give your page a neat and professional look. Signifiers like “|”can keep multiple pieces of information separate on a single line. Even though you have a structured and well organized profile/ bio, your goal is not to make it look pretty. The goal is to have a minimalist setup that is designed to achieve the singular purpose of monetization through the product or service that is accessible through the posted link in your bio. Nothing less, nothing more.
