5 Jun, 2019
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343 million. That’s how many posts there are under the hashtag #fitness on Instagram as of right now. With so much competition out there in the fitness space, how are you supposed to cut through the noise and grow your following?
Here’s how: by creating an Instagram fitness bio that can’t be missed!
Why is your fitness bio so important? Well, a recent study found that it takes your viewers just two-tenths of a second to form their first impressions of your brand. When your audience clicks your Instagram page, what’s the first thing those viewers will see in that crucial millisecond?
That’s right, your bio.
Whether you’re a personal trainer looking to connect with new clients, or a fitness brand trying to build their social presence, your fitness bio is crucial. Get it right, and you stand a much better chance of growing your audience and converting those profile viewers into loyal customers.
So, how do you create the perfect Instagram fitness bio? Let’s find out.
Ampjar helps you share and be shared by fitness brands you love – our platform was designed to match you with complementary brands that can help grow your following and revenue – see how.
First, let’s talk about the anatomy of an Instagram bio.
Here’s an infographic that shows the different parts that make up the bio for an imaginary Instagram fitness account; we’ll dig down into the details about each part later on.
As you can see, there are 4 key components to a complete Instagram profile and bio:
If you really want a bio that stands out from the crowd, you’ve got to nail every single one of these components.
Here’s how:
The photo you should use really depends on the type of account you’re trying to create (i.e. a company account or a personal account) and the brand image you’re trying to project.
Ask yourself this: Are you creating an account for a gym, studio, or other fitness-related business? Or are you a personal trainer, fitness blogger, or fitness influencer?
If it’s the former, you’re going to want to use an element of your company logo. If your logo is simple, go ahead and use it in its full form, like this example from Nike.
If it’s a little more complicated, you’ll need to simplify it so that it still looks readable when viewed on a small mobile screen. For example, you might want to just use the first letter of your logo text or a simplified icon. Here’s an example from Soul Cycle.
If you’re a personal trainer, you can choose between a logo, headshot, or full-body shot, depending on what kind of image you want to present.
Headshots are more personable and are great for connecting with your followers and making yourself seem more ‘human’ and approachable – just remember to smile! Conversely, logos are less personable but more professional and can help to legitimize your personal brand.
Full-body shots are a lot less professional, but they’re still a popular choice for fitness accounts. The benefit of a full-body shot is that you get to show off your inspirational physique (if you have one) to motivate your followers to pursue their own body transformations.
While you’re creating your photo, bear in mind that it needs to be at least 110 x 110 pixels and that Instagram will crop it to fit into a circle. It’s best to leave a slight margin to account for this and to center your photo in the middle of the frame so that the edges won’t be cropped.
A good fitness username for Instagram is one that communicates exactly who you are and what you do. Your name should be easy to decipher and immediately show your followers that you’re a fitness professional.
You’re limited to just 30 characters and your Instagram username can include letters, numbers, periods, and underscores, but no other types of characters. Generally speaking, it’s best to avoid punctuation altogether anyway.
In an ideal world, your username would be your brand name or actual personal name. However, oftentimes you’ll find that your brand/personal name is already taken. What now?
Well, the best option is to add your location or another word to your name. For example, let’s imagine you’re a personal trainer and your name is (conveniently) Max Swoll but the username ‘maxswoll’ is taken.
Here are some fitness Instagram name ideas that you might want to try instead:
Here’s a great example from personal trainer Nick Mitchell, who added the word ‘hey’ as a workaround.
You get the picture. What you don’t want to do is add numbers or punctuation. This looks amateur and won’t help you to project the right image. Avoid things like:
Another tip is to add some keywords to the end of your name (if you have enough characters left) to help people who are searching for those keywords to stumble across your profile. You can separate the actual name part of your fitness username with a hyphen.
Sticking with our ‘Max Swoll’ example, your fitness username might look like this:
Now you have your username and photo, you’re ready to write your bio. Your bio is there to help with SEO, communicate what you do, and convince your viewers to follow you. You only have 150 characters to work with, so you’ve got to squeeze out every last ounce of worth.
The best way to approach your bio is to treat it like an elevator pitch. In other words, summarize what you do for your followers or customers in a single short sentence. Here’s a template to help you to do just that – just fill in the blanks to write your own personal trainer biography:
“I/we help ______ to ______ with/without/in/through ______”
Using the above template, your bio might look something like this:
But that’s not all. You also want to pack your bio out with both keywords that your ideal followers/customers might be searching for, and powerful emotive language.
Emotive language is a staple of persuasive writing. It’s a linguistic device that has been around for decades for one specific reason: it motivates people to take action. Words like ‘diet’ aren’t very inspiring, whereas words like ‘nourish’ and ‘fuel’ are.
You should also add in a few emojis to make your bio more creative, easier to read, and visually stimulating.
Here’s an example from fitness Instagrammers Tone It Up, note the emojis, keywords, and emotive words like ‘confident’, ‘life’, and ‘nutrition’.
Leave space at the bottom of your Instagram bio to add a short call to action (CTA) and a link. This bit is really important if you’re using Instagram to promote your products or services as it’s how you’ll push them to the next stage in your sales funnel.
Don’t link directly to your sales page. It’s better to link to a capture page instead so that you can grab their email address and keep communicating. Your capture page should offer something for free in exchange for their email address and consent, like a fitness ebook or other resource. We’ve written a more detailed guide to getting your followers to sign up to your email list here.
Your CTA is easy. Just encourage people to click the link by telling them why they should do. A simple directive like “click here for _______” is all you need and you could even just state where the link leads and add an arrow emoji to point the reader towards it, like this example from trainer Kayla Itsines.
If you haven’t already added a CTA, do so and see how it affects your bio click-through rate by tracking your website clicks – it will almost certainly improve it. If you don’t know how to track your clicks, we’ve explained the process in this post.
If you’d like to link out to a few different pages, you’re going to need to use an Instagram link tool. These tools create a short URL which directs the viewer to a page with multiple other links to different pages on your site.
We’ve now covered all of the main components of an awesome fitness bio. Before we finish up, here are 5 bonus tips to help you nail it.
Talk about what you can provide for your followers (daily fitness inspiration) rather than yourself (B.A. in Nutrition)
Do you foresee a time in the future where you might need to rebrand? Think carefully about this and don’t lock yourself into a fitness username that you might outgrow.
Things don’t always work out on the first try. If your bio doesn’t seem to be delivering results/converting well, try updating your bio and track the performance to compare.
If you’re promoting a product or service, don’t just list the features in your bio. Talk about the benefits. Your readers don’t want to read ‘fitness wearables’, they want to read ‘fitness wearables that supercharge your weight loss’.
It’s unlikely that Instagram is your only social account so try to be consistent and use the same one across your whole social presence. If possible, choose a username with less than 15 characters so that you can keep it the same on platforms that have lower character caps, like Twitter.
That about covers all you need to know about crafting the ultimate Instagram fitness bio. To provide a little more inspiration, here are some IG fitness bio examples that we love.
Here’s a great bio example from British fitness guru Joe Wicks. He’s used a shortened link tool, emotive language, and a few different keywords to create a well-optimized, powerful fitness bio.
Kayla is one of the most followed fitness influencers on Instagram. As you can see, her bio is really creative and visual, it’s packed full of emojis, hashtags, and keywords.
This is another great example of a fitness bio from author and coach Lauren Drain Kagan. It’s packed with keywords, emojis, and links out to a relevant capture page.
All these guys did a great job! If you’re interested in working with top influencers like this as part of your marketing campaign, check out our working with influencers checklist.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments! Good luck!
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