Personal Profile Tips for Instagram

Your Instagram profile is not only your first impression to potential followers and new visitors but also your consistent message to your existing audience. Your Instagram profile should be recognizable as your style and representative of what you want people to see about you. The image below shows you what a standard personal profile looks like on Instagram.

Instagram profiles are composed of the following five components: username, name, profile photo, bio, and web address.

Choosing a username and name for your Instagram profile

Your username and name are two of the most important components of your Instagram profile because they’re the only two searchable criteria of your profile. When users type a keyword or name in the Search field on Instagram, the app looks at only the username and name fields of accounts to determine if an account is relevant to that search query.

The username is the string of characters at the top of an Instagram profile. The name is the bold text below the profile photo. If you want your account to be found by a keyword or phrase, be sure to include it in either the name or username for your account.

Choosing the best Instagram username

When you set up a new Instagram account, you’re required to choose a username. Your Instagram username is how you’re recognized on Instagram: All activity, from the content you post to how you engage with others, is associated with your username. The username is at the top of the profile.

Your username is delineated with the at (@) symbol when referring to you as a user. The web address (technically known as the URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator) for your Instagram account is

http://instagram.com/yourusername

When you interact on Instagram, the username appears as

yourusername

An Instagram username is limited to 30 characters and must contain only letters, numbers, periods, and underscores. You can’t include symbols or other punctuation marks as a part of your username.

Choose a username that represents you or your name, is recognizable, and, if possible, distinguishes what you do. Your username may be simply your name or nickname. If you’re already established on other social media, like Twitter, you might want to choose the same username on Instagram as you use on other sites, so that your current audience can easily find you.

During the registration portion of your Instagram account, you’re prompted to select your username. If the username you selected is available, a check mark will appear. If someone is using the username you entered, an X will appear in the username field. Keep selecting alternatives until you find an available username.

If the username you want to use is unavailable, you can use alternative options by adding periods or underscores to the username, by using abbreviations, or by adding another word.

If you’re signing up for a new Instagram account using the website, Instagram will populate an available username for you. You’re welcome to use this suggested name, but it’s not recommended because it’s generic and it won’t represent you or be nearly as creative as one you come up with yourself.

Always check what your username looks like as one long word. If you wanted your username to be “christoper u”, it would read as “christopheru” which may get misread as “chris to pheru” or “christophe ru” or other versions. Instead, include an underscore or a a period to separate words, like “christopher_u”.

There is little you can do to have an existing username transferred to your account if it’s in use or was previously registered by another user. If another account is using your registered trademark as its username, visit https://help.instagram.com/101826856646059 for information on how to file a claim of trademark violation.

After you select a username, all content linking to your profile is associated with the username’s URL. If you want to change the username at some point, your URL would change and you would need to update all backlinks and links to that profile accordingly. This is why it’s best to choose the right username when setting up your Instagram profile.

If you want to change your Instagram username, follow these steps:

1. Go to your profile on Instagram on either your mobile device or your computer.
2. Tap or click Edit Profile.
3. In the Username field, type the new username.
4. Save your changes.

   To do so, tap the check mark, Done, Save, or Submit button (depending on the device you’re using).

Choosing the best name for Instagram

Your Instagram name is visible only when someone visits your profile directly. The name appears in bold below the profile photo. You can use your actual name or a nickname as your name on Instagram.

Your profile will perform better in searches and look less amateurish if the name and username are different. Having a name that’s different from your username provides double the opportunity for keywords and searchable criteria in the Instagram app. Power users on Instagram take the time to craft good username and name components.

Unlike your username, which is one word, your name should be in proper sentence structure with capital letters and spacing. Your name (like your username) is limited to 30 characters, including spaces.

You can be found in more searches on Instagram if you include a keyword or phrase in your name or username or both. If you didn’t put a defining keyword in your username, you should include one in your name field, in addition to your actual name.

The name on your profile is not tied to your URL or other defining aspects of Instagram, so you can change it without your username being affected. Consider adding or changing keywords, as necessary, to appeal to your target audience on Instagram.

If you want to change your name on Instagram, do the following:

1. Go to your Instagram profile, and tap or click Edit Profile.
2. In the Name field, type the new name.
3. Save your changes.

   To do so, tap the check mark, Done, Save, or Submit button (depending on the device you’re using).

Deciding on an Instagram profile photo

The profile photo on your account, as well as your username, is associated with all your activity. When you post any photos to Instagram or engage with other users in any way, your profile photo is visible.

Your profile photo should represent you and be recognizable to others. If you actively use other social media platforms, you may want to use the same photograph for your Instagram profile as you already use on other platforms. That way, you create cohesion across your online media and assure your followers that they found the correct account when searching for you.

The account of @lorettagavin is a good example of having a profile photo that stands out, is easy to recognize, and represents her as a person.

Profile photos on Instagram are cropped to a circle, so your photo should fit properly within that crop. Don’t use a logo or an image that loses valuable content when cropped to a circle.

The profile photo on your profile page appears larger than anywhere else on Instagram. When interacting with others, the profile photo is a thumbnail (small) version. Choose an image that isn’t too busy, overwhelming, or cluttered with text, because the image will become difficult to decipher as a thumbnail.

The best profile photos have a clear object of focus, contain a simple background, and are sized at least 550 x 550 pixels. The ideal image size is 1,080 by 1,080 pixels for a square image. (If you upload a photo that’s too small, it may appear pixelated, which is what happens when a low-resolution image is enlarged too much and the individual square pixels become obvious, making the image blurry.)

Your Instagram profile is what the world will see so don’t be afraid to be yourself!