*this blog post is also available via podcast and on Youtube

Imagine if I told you that you’re using the most important feature on Instagram completely wrong or, even worse, most likely have full-on neglected it.

What if I told you that it’s important because it’s the most looked at part of Instagram.

And what if I said it’s causing you to lose clients, customers and discoverability.

Any guess what this highly important Instagram feature is that you’re using totally wrong?

Posts? No.

Stories? No.

Shopping? No.

Reels? No, but we do need to talk about this SOON!

Give up?!

It’s your PROFILE.

In order to get the most out of this article, your account needs to be set to Professional or Business. The type of account doesn’t matter: you can select whichever option fits your situation.

Setting your profile to Professional gives you a ton of features not available to regular accounts on Instagram, including the very important analytics, referred to as Insights on Instagram.

In addition to Insights, setting your account to Professional comes with

Click here to visit Instagram Help’s Business Center article to get instructions on how to change your account to Professional and more information on Professional accounts.

Alright, now your account is set to Professional, let’s get to it.

Take a look at your Profile. Does it say what you do? Does it say anything about you? If you’re a store or retail location, where are you? Where are you located? What do you do? If you’re selling things, what are you selling? When’s your next shirt release? Can we see it? Can we find it anywhere in your last six posts (I mean the first six posts visible on your profile when your profile is clicked). Or do they contain random quotes and memes and stuff that have nothing to do with what you do or an action you want your followers to take? No one should be confused about what you do.

If you’re a painter, we should see with your art in your posts. If you’re a music artist with a goal to have people show up to your performances, your social media profile should let your followers know when you’re performing.

If you want people to come to your store, your profile should display where your store is located.

Your potential customers should see the merchandise in your store.

There should be no hinting. We should not be confused.

Now that you’ve made it this far, I’m going to reward you with a secret: your entire Instagram profile is SEARCHABLE, including your Bio! And because your Instagram profile is searchable, that makes these three letters, short for biography, the most important part of your profile. But despite it’s power, the Bio is often the most neglected part of the Instagram profile. It’s what people are looking for when they come to your profile and it’s what Instagram search wants to show your potential customers looking for a life coach for inspiration and future consultations.

The FEED ALGORITHM (remember, Instagram and most all other apps use multiple algorithms) uses what’s posted in your Bio in order to show your profile in Suggestions and in Search. For instance, if you have Garage Rap in your Bio and a user searches for “garage rappers,” your profile is likely to show up.

Instagram recently updated your name section to include MORE CHARACTERS. What that means is you have the opportunity to include what you do in your name section which, in turn, gives you more opportunity to be DISCOVERED!

Let’s say you’re a florist named Power Flower that specializes in stunning graduation and ceremonial leis. Because you now have 64 characters to display what your brand is about, you change your profile name to Power Flower The Bay Area’s Best Graduation Leis and the followers start showing up and the orders too! Why?! Because you told Instagram that you’re a florist in the Bay Area that makes graduation leis and:

Your bio gives you 150 characters to talk about your brand but your bio is empty like your brand is as famous as Coca Cola. Your potential customers don’t know you exist and they can’t find you. They need you to be discoverable and to tell them what you do. Let them know about the amazing eclairs your pastry shop is famous for. You have 150 characters!

Sunni is “hunger-scrolling” through her Instagram Feed and your Reel for your amazing Vegan burger called The Greenwich, shows up. She instantly wants to eat at Veggie Greens, your cute mom and pop Vegetarian restaurant, but she doesn’t know where it’s located. So, she clicks your Profile name from your Reel and is taken to your Profile where, to her disappointment, there’s no location or contact information. Sunni wants to look it up but she just got a notification that her favorite music artist went Live, so she joins the Live, totally putting Veggie Green’s off for a restaurant she knows how to reach. You’ve lost a customer for that day and potentially forever…all because you didn’t include contact information.

Instagram lets businesses reach customers via contact information and actions.

Actions are limited by provider and location so check here for more on actions.

Have Stories that are just too good, you want to keep them longer than 24 hours? Well, you have a place for that. The area located between your Bio and your profile grid, is where these Stories go, called Highlights.

Highlights are particularly useful when you want to highlight specifics about your brand. There are so many ways to use Highlights. For instance, if you’re a restaurant, use a single Highlight or multiple Highlights to showcase popular menu items. Or use them to display menu items on one, special occasions in another, behind the scenes in another.

And don’t forget to edit your Highlight cover! You can use a Story in your Highlight or a picture from your gallery. More information on Highlights, here.

Those rectangles that contain all of your photos and Reels has a name. And it’s Profile Grid. These posts were displayed in chronological order on your Profile. But in early June of 2022, Instagram adding the Profile Grid Pins. This feature, gives you even more control over how your brand is presented is by giving users the ability to pin up to 3 Posts/Reels to your profile grid and the additional ability to pin 3 Reels to your Reels grid. This feature, released in early June 2022, first started with posts to your profile-only and just recently updated to allow pins to your Reels. If you would like, you can Pin the same Reel to both your Profile grid and to your Reels grid, respectively. We’ll work on those Covers in another blog post.

Alright, that was a lot of information! Now it’s your turn to use the Instagram profile tips that you learned about in this article.

Let me know if you made any of these changes to your Instagram profile.

Talk to you next time, Peace!