When an Instagram Bio Has Nothing to Say

I've been down with an absolutely miserable cold, so I might be feeling a little extra salty on this one.

I might've also spent more time poking around on social than I care to admit, over these past couple of days. (I ran out of Drag Race All-Stars episodes to binge!)

But, in those online wanderings, I saw something that made feel (even more) sick.

It made me think to myself, "dear god, that is the opposite of anything I'd ever want my business to be."

The thing that caused this visceral reaction? An Instagram bio.

Don't waste space in your online marketing

Brevity in your writing is hard, y'all. I mean, I'm married to a copywriter, and he'd probably send this very email back to me riddled with edits. Still, with some thought, you CAN make a clear impression with fewer words than you think.

Or, in the case of the Instagram bio above, you can say a whole lot of nothing.

I'm not going to name and shame the company, by any means, but I AM going to call out a top 5 of what's not working for me in this Instagram bio.

• "Top" Experts? Some of the emptiest words in marketing are "top," "best," "excellent," and so on. Best according to who, exactly? And better yet, best in what way?
• "Exceptional Digital experiences" This entire line could just go away. It's basically re-phrasing their claim of being "top web experts."
• What do these "Leading" brands do? Are they rad companies I love? Or are they everything that's wrong with America? They've told us nothing about who they work with.
• "Digital transformation?" Any one of dozens of branding and copywriting workbooks will tell you to describe the transformation.
• Maybe it's just me, but "digital" feels like such an old-school marketer word. What's next, are we bringing back "The Information Superhighway"? 😉

Basically, these folks have committed to nothing. These are empty, old-fashioned statements with no personality.

They're burying me in buzzwords, and I hate marketing buzzwords.

When your business has no discernible personality or values, your audience's imagination takes over pretty quickly... and definitely not in a good way.

You can stand out SO much more by saying something meaningful.

Yeah, it often has to be short, both for character counts and attention spans. But, it doesn't have to be perfectly stated. You still have space to leave an impression.

Businesses are already doing it. I've seen business profiles that:

• declare themselves as queer- or BIPOC-owned
• focus on serving ADHD and neurodivergent humans
• niche w-a-a-a-y the heck down so you know exactly who they're talking to
• dedicate part of their 150 characters to say Free Palestine

If you want to take a stand, do it from the word Go. There's no time for wasted space online, so even if it's your tiny hill, plant a freaking flag on it.

Tell us what matters to you. Tell us who you want to hear from. Tell us what you will (and won't) stand for.

What can you commit to in 150 characters or less?

Until next time,
--Sarah

Speaking of Instagram bios, in the next few weeks, I'll be dropping a worksheet to guide you through optimizing your Instagram bio, so yours doesn't look like the one I just roasted up there.

But also, "optimizing?" Yecch. I'll have to come up with a better name for it between now and then. 😉