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We don’t have to emphasize how important a social media presence is for both brands and marketers, but if you still need convincing, consider these stats:
Marketing professionals and brands should strive to make their social media pages as discoverable as possible. And writing a clear social media bio is key.
Read on to discover how to write magnetic social media bios. Whether you’re representing a brand or just yourself, delve into what makes a stellar social media bio.
Think of social media bios as a digital peek into your world. It’s about how you introduce yourself online; your elevator pitch and the reason why someone would be interested in learning more about you or your company.
For marketers, this means crafting a concise paragraph of your achievements, interests, and other relevant information. A well-written bio is a powerful tool that offers a glimpse into personal passions and motivations, establishing a relatable online identity, and building connections between marketers and their prospective audience.
For brands, a social media bio serves as a representation of a brand's identity, allowing brands to establish a unique personality and create an emotional bond with their audience. Since a bio is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective follower, it plays a crucial role in drawing the audience, building credibility, and converting prospective followers into followers – and customers.
Your bio creates the first impression. Regardless of the intent of your social pages, a well-structured social media bio can help:
1. Boost searchability: Make it easier for your potential customers and clients to discover you before your competition.
2. Keep all your links in one place: Use proprietary or third-party apps to organize your links and help consumers navigate your pages easier.
3. Provide critical information: Help your audience find the most up-to-date information about your brand, product, or service and the best ways to contact you.
When looking to understand what brands do, people often go to X (formerly Twitter) to read brief summaries of how brands describe themselves in 160 characters.
You’ll often see a brand’s bio resembling a sales pitch; “With us, you can look/feel/achieve [insert the benefit],” and a call to action; “Sign up,” “Subscribe,” or “View a demo.”
Other social media bios may feature a brand’s mission and values instead.
There’s no right or wrong. What matters is the intent: Are you looking to express a thought, share information, or inspire action? Think about the next steps you’d like your audience to take.
So, what goes in a bio? Before we dive into the specifics, please keep in mind the character limits for each platform.
Social media bio character count per platform:
A quick note: A larger character count doesn’t mean you need to fill out the bio in its entirety. Write your bio with your audience in mind instead.
1. Choose a clear bio style. Brands can take several directions with their bio. They can be inspirational, entertaining, informational, and so on.
For example, Duolingo’s TikTok bio combines a brand’s mission and an educational goal with a touch of humor, making the account that much more relatable.
L'Oréal’s bio on Instagram can be described as empowering and inclusive. It elevates individual worth and encourages followers to express their value through a custom hashtag. #LOrealParisFamily also promotes a sense of community.
Charmin's bio is playful and humorous. The brand uses relevant emojis, including a poop emoji, toilet, and toilet paper, the combination that can surely squeeze a giggle even out of the toughest online audience.
2. Brand purpose. What does your brand do? Who are the customers you serve, and what is your market niche? Clarity helps consumers understand if they are in the right place.
3. Location. There are many ways brands can incorporate their locations into a bio, from using the geolocation feature to adding flag emojis or city abbreviations straight to the bio (for example, NYC, LON, BER).
4. The why. Why should consumers be interested in your brand or following your social feeds? In other words, what’s in it for them? In the example below, Grammarly leads their social media bio with a strong benefit for consumers: write confidently.
5. Relevant keywords. Use keywords tailored towards your target audience, as it can help consumers discover you on social platforms faster.
6. Contact details. How should consumers contact you?
7. Call to action. What is the action your audience should take? Are you looking to grow your following, encourage user-generated content, or check out the product link in your bio? In the example below, a DSW encourages the audience to spread the word about DSW by tagging the brand using #MyDSW and @dsw on Instagram.
1. Identity. Your name and your professional alias if you have one, for example, MrBeast or Gary Vee. Sometimes, having a “stage name” helps marketers stand out. We’ve even seen websites that help generate stage names.
2. A unique hashtag. If you use distinctive hashtags, like #samsales or #ModGirl, to tag all your content, surface it in your bio.
3. Highlight your offerings. List products or services you offer. Alternatively, you can use the space to promote your latest product or service.
Laura Pearson, a fiction writer, asked her followers on X whether she should include "UK Kindle number 1 bestseller" in her social media bio. Out of 409 people who voted in Laura’s poll, 85% voted in favor of “yes, why not.”
4. Keywords. Add keywords, enhancing your profile searchability. For example, you specify the area of specialty, like social media, content marketing, or paid social.
5. Purpose of your page. Describe what the audience can expect from your page. Do you post informational type of content, how-tos, your day-to-day, or something else?
6. Contact details. Add website links to any other online assets and pages your audience may benefits from.
7. A clear call to action. What would you like your audience to do next? Download your kit, follow your profile for more updates, comment on your latest post, etc?
8. Location. It’s especially relevant if you are serving local markets.
Here’s an example from brand marketing and social media consultant Taylor Loren.
Some platforms offer more visual real estate that you can leverage to strengthen your professional profile. We are talking about profile banners on LinkedIn, X, and Facebook.
Here are two examples from marketers using custom profile banners on LinkedIn.
The answer depends on your personality and who you’d like to attract as an audience. It has been proven time and time again that authenticity wins. And we recommend you to stay as authentic to yourself as possible.
What makes Pluto TV’s bio good? It features:
PWC, a professional services and consulting company
What makes PWC’s bio on Instagram good?
Target, a shopping and retail brand
What makes Target’s Instagram bio inviting?
Nudah, Head of Content, Soar Gaming
Clayton Huddleston, also known as Nudah, is a general manager at Soar Gaming.
What makes this bio attractive?
It has a value proposition and offers credibility: a popular YouTuber with a large following, indicating the value of the content shared in that channel.
The bio has a clear call to action targeting a specific audience – gamers. And the stage name, Nudah, is repeated throughout the profile to boost brand awareness and name recall.
Madalyn Sklar, social media consultant
What makes this bio attractive? Madalyn Sklar’s bio has:
Wave Wyld, TikTok marketing consultant
What makes this profile stand out? The bio contains:
We’ll wrap up this blog with a few quick reminders.
1. Make sure to read the guidelines of the platform you intend to create a profile on.
2. Take note of the allowed character count in the bio.
3. If you intend to use emojis, keep in mind that some platforms may not allow the use of emojis in bio, and some emojis may not display correctly.
4. Make sure you understand the meaning behind some of the popular emojis before you add them to your social media bio. (We talk about emojis and their meaning in our Practical Emoji Guide For Social Media Marketers.)
5. Be mindful that a short consumer attention span may affect how far they’ll scroll down your bio.
6. If you don’t know where to start with your social media bio, there’s no shortage of social media bio generators, like the one from Ahrefs, that can help you gather your thoughts.
Lastly, a social media bio doesn’t have to be a one-and-done deal. Update your bio regularly to stay relevant and up to date.
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