Tips for Creating a Professional Instagram Profile

Having a professional Instagram profile is important if you’re an influencer growing your audience or looking for collaborations. One of the first things you should do is switch to a creator or business account. This gives you all kinds of insights and statistics and it also gives you a few extra profile options. Read my post Why & How to Switch to a Creator Account for more info on that topic.

Let’s go over every aspect of your profile!

Photo:

As an influencer, remember you are selling yourself! A smiling head shot is an excellent option. Photos with simple or neutral backgrounds look best. I find that my profile photo looks best if I brighten it up a little more than if it was being used for a post.

Name:

Don’t repeat your username here. Instead add your first name or nickname AND your industry, job title, or some keywords. Did you know this field is searchable?! So choose strong, relevant keywords that people might search for.

Username:

Usernames like cutecitygirl87 or x.happyhippie.x are just fine if you have a personal account. But if you’re trying to build a reputable image and market yourself more seriously, you should use your real name. I find using periods is more visually pleasing than underscores. Try to avoid numbers altogether. If your name is Kristin Nicholson and that’s taken, try options like thekristinnicholson or nicholson.kristin or kristins.city.life, etc.

Website:

This is such a powerful field! Linktr.ee and Linkin.bio are popular for displaying multiple links but an even better option is creating a link page on your own website. I created my own here: kristinbytheocean.com/links

Do NOT use url shorteners like bitly or tinyurl! People are way less likely to click a mystery link than a discernible one!

Bio:

150 characters is all you have to make a meaningful impact. Consider these points… What are you great at? What do you offer? What is your main niche? Who is your target audience? What are your audience interests? Make sure your bio points out what you can do for your viewers or why they should follow you.

Your bio also needs to be visually pleasing. Rather than lines of solid text, break things up by using bullet points or emojis.

Avoid putting hashtags in your profile as that’s actually an opportunity for people to click away from your profile. (An exception is if you have your own brand hashtag and are encouraging people to use it).

IMPORTANT! You can have multiple lines of text but only 4 lines display before you’ll see ‘show more’ and not everybody will tap that. Keep your most important info within 4 lines!

Category:

Choose a category to show on your profile because that’s one less word you have to include in your bio. There is an option to hide your category if you’d rather not have it displayed but you should still select one. Some popular ones are blogger, entrepreneur, media, or website.

Location:

If you have a business account you’re able to add your location. You can enter a full address or just a city and state. Adding a location shows transparency and trustworthiness.

Contact:

This might be the most important part of a professional Instagram profile! It is crucial to have your email address entered in this field. This gives you a button on your account and you don’t have to take up precious space in your bio.

An email address is important because that’s how most legitimate brands will reach out to influencers they are interested in! The days of DM offers are almost a thing of the past. Since entering my email address that’s where I get the best and most serious offers. It also helps to have a professional sounding email (refer to the same tips for your username).

Highlights:

Matching highlight covers have become very popular and it really does help with creating a clean and professional Instagram profile. My favorite way of finding highlight covers is on Etsy.com! You can find any style for under $5 and you’re supporting somebody’s small biz at the same time! It also looks great to use plain, solid colors.

It’s a smart idea to limit your highlights to about 8 or less. Having too many highlights will draw attention away from your important ones. The fewer highlights you have, the more likely somebody will click them.