Instagram's latest nifty little update

Instagram is a roadrunner, outfoxing its competitors and staying miles ahead of other wiley coyotes of the social media app world. The platform regularly updates its features, policies and, most confusingly, its algorithm, providing both helpful tricks and lumpy obstacles for creative agencies and social media teams to manage.

The app’s developers recently introduced a new nifty feature with promising uses for personal account users as well as influencers and brands. Account owners have always been able to include handles and hashtags in account bios, but the latest update has some handy functions.

Clickable bio handles

Whenever a user taps a clickable bio handle in another account’s bio, the user will be directed to the profile that uses that handle. This feature is perfect for influencer duos who regularly work together on campaigns, brands collaborating with other brands and other accounts within their brand, and people who just want to help their friends get some new followers.

Clickable bio hashtags

The clickable bio hashtags are game-changers for Instagram user experience. Clickable bio hashtags connect accounts with similar content, a perfect complement to followable hashtags which show high-engaging images on your feed, a feature rolled out earlier this year.

This also takes some of the leg (and finger) work out of Search & Explore, which suggests content according to your interests. Just tap on a hashtag in someone’s bio and you’re immediately turned to content that you’re looking for. Profiles with hashtags in their bio currently aren’t featured on hashtag searches, but using a hashtag regularly will increase how often you feature on that hashtag’s search results.

Perhaps the best use of clickable bio hashtags for a brand is to get fans and the community to submit content and possibly contribute to the brand’s feed. Fans need only include the brand’s chosen clickable bio hashtag in their own posts’ captions, and then whenever other fans visit the brand’s profile they can see what other fans have been sharing.

How and why you decide to include these new handy features has no limits, so this is a great time to get on top of that long overdue bio update you’ve been thinking about thinking about.

Just watch out for those banned hashtags everyone has been dodging!