TikTok is fast becoming the next big thing on social media for both individuals and brands.
Fortunately, the dance and lip sync app can be a lot more if your brand uses it strategically. The first starting point for this strategy is your TikTok bio.
As with any social media platform, your bio is your chance to introduce yourself and your brand to any potential follower.
You don’t have time to re-introduce yourself in every video you create. So your bio gives you the opportunity to do just that. This is your chance to tell your potential followers who you are and why they should be following you.
Here’s how to optimize your TikTok bio to increase followers and ultimately attract more qualified leads for your business.
5 steps to optimize your TikTok Bio
Creating a converting TikTok bio doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, you only need to take five steps to create a bio that will help you grow your fan base. Let’s dig deeper into each of these five steps.
1. Describe your account or brand.
Tell your followers who you are and what you do. You may be able to get an idea of what your profile is about from your videos, but you don’t want to rely on that.
What if you decide to make a video that is important to you but has nothing to do with your brand? Your visitors need to have another way of knowing what your business is about.
Image source
It just needs to be a few words. So make sure you summarize exactly what you want people to know before deciding whether to follow you or not. Make sure your language is engaging, compelling, and effectively conveys the value or purpose of your brand.
2. Add emojis.
Almost every TikTok bio has an emoji in it. With an emoji, you can further emphasize your brand’s personality. Plus, it allows you to showcase your brand’s products or services without taking up too much space in your bio.
For example, if you work for an ecommerce brand that sells clothes, consider adding a t-shirt emoji (👕). If your business sells video tools, consider adding a video camera emoji (📹).
You can also add emojis to tell people what to do. If you’d like them to click the link below or hit the “Follow” button at the top, you can add arrows to express this without using additional characters to encourage your visitors to act.
Image source
3. Add a CTA.
As with any good social media bio, have a call to action in your bio. This tells your visitors exactly what to do next so they know how best to interact with you. For example, you can include a CTA to direct followers to a blog post link, e-commerce website, or other social channel like Instagram or YouTube.
Image source
At least ask your visitors to follow you on TikTok. You want to make it a habit of adding a call to action to almost every single piece of content or communication you share with your followers. That way, they’ll be more inclined to take action immediately after viewing your content.
4. Do not exceed the character limit.
Of course, TikTok has a character limit on their bio, and it’s not very big. You only have 80 characters to communicate your entire bio. That’s a little over half the limit you have on Instagram that can already feel tight!
This is one of the reasons emojis are so useful. You want to be able to save your characters and use them wisely to quickly and fully communicate your brand to your audience. Pick the most important aspects of your brand and highlight them in your bio.
5. Paste a link in your TikTok bio.
TikTok gives you space for a link. If it’s currently available to you, then you should definitely use it. This is a valuable way of directing TikTok’s traffic from the platform to other pages that you want to promote.
From there, you can direct followers to a relevant e-book or landing page to collect their contact information and add them to your email list, or you can share the sales page for the latest product that you have touted in your video .
There are several different ways you can tweak the link in your bio, and there are a few things to consider before trying to add one yourself. Let’s get into that next.
Url options
First, when you include a link in your bio, you have the option of only sending traffic to a single URL. You can choose your latest blog post, homepage, special landing page, social media profile, or any other page.
The other option is to advertise multiple links through one link in the organic service. This type of service allows you to direct people to a web page that has a collection of page links for them to visit.
You can include links to your blog, affiliate links, products, or even your other social media websites. By using a link on the bio service for your TikTok, you can give your visitors more opportunities to connect with you outside of TikTok. It also saves you the hassle of editing your link every time you upload a new video promoting a different product or service.
Access the link in Bio on TikTok
However, there is one caveat to the link in the bio option: not everyone has the option to add a link to their bio yet. It seems that most, if not all, Android users have this option while some iOS TikTok users are still waiting for its features. If you want to check that you have this option:
1. Go to “Edit Profile”.
2. Check to see if you have an option that says “Website” under the section where you can edit your bio
If you don’t already have this skill, don’t worry. There is another way to add a link to your bio, even if you don’t see that option in your app. You can join the TikTok Testers program.
To participate in the program, you will need to download a separate app called Testflight from the App Store.
Next, open your existing TikTok app and go to the three dots in the top right corner of your profile page to access “Settings”. Then scroll down and click “Join TikTok Testers”.
Follow the instructions from there and you will be able to access the various beta versions of TikTok as they are released. TikTok offers this program to ensure that only the best features get into the primary app, and it helps to keep the app as bug free as possible.
TikTok organic samples
Now that you know all of the elements you need to have a fully optimized TikTok bio, let’s take a look at some great examples so you can see these strategies in action.
1. Fashion
There’s no shortage of fashion influencers, accounts, and people who love fashion on TikTok.
Here Shanda Rogers uses her bio to share that she is a fashion, lifestyle and beauty blogger. She has emojis and her location and she also has a link in her bio to her website.
2. Travel
Travel is perhaps almost as popular at TikTok as fashion. Whether you’re documenting your own travels or sharing interesting things about your hometown for visitors, there are many ways to showcase travel images and videos on TikTok.
This account, @movchai_travel has a great bio that has a brief description, location, emoji, and two different ways to reach out to them and either contact them or read their Instagram profile instead.
3. Sports
People are interested in all kinds of sports. So, if you have a sports-based account, make it easy for people to find you and watch your videos. BMX cyclist @yusufbmx has a well-optimized bio.
He shares what he’s known for – including being India’s gold medalist -, uses emojis, and has a link to his Instagram where people can see more.
4. Eating
Food: something that almost everyone likes to see. We saw the popularity of food videos on Facebook like those created by Buzzfeed’s brand Tasty.
It makes sense that TikTok users would love to see the same thing. Perhaps @iamtabithabrown, one of the most popular and lovable vegans on the internet, has made a name for herself on TikTok.
She shares delicious looking vegan recipes and does so with a lot of love. You can see that her bio is well optimized, with a brief description of who she is, an emoji, a link to her website, and even a call-to-action encouraging visitors to buy goods on her website.
Put your TikTok Bio together
When you combine these five elements of a great TikTok bio and take inspiration from these four different reports, you should have a pretty good idea of the changes you might need to make to yours.
Before you open TikTok, take out a piece of paper, write down the few words you would use to describe your brand or profile, and decide on your call to action as well.
Then you can go into the app and work on the wording until your bio looks exactly how you want it. Don’t forget to add emojis and a link if you can!
For more inspiration, see How 7 Brands Use TikTok.