How to return on your instagram bio

As a daily Instagram browser, all too often I see terribly formatted captions and bios- most making the mistake of trying to put spaces between the photo caption and the hashtag section but failing miserably. Here is a simple trick for making real spaces in your posts and bios, without periods or other characters.

How to NOT do it

Chances are if you’re reading this, you already know what these look like and are seeking a better way. People do this all the time, but even major companies and enterprise accounts do this too. Here is an example from the official GMC Trucks account:

How To Do It Right

Here’s an image from my own profile with clean, empty spaces between line breaks:

Bonus: Followers See a Clean Version in Their Feed

The spaces and hashtags are hidden under the “more” tag automatically, but are still read by Instagram search. You’ll still get all the likes, followers and benefits from using those hashtags, but this method allows them to be hidden from view.

How It Works

In a nutshell, the spaces created with the space bar are empty pixels. However there are also “spaces as characters” which do take up space. Both spaces are invisible to you, but Instagram sees them differently.

Step 1: 

Select and copy the following (the invisible spaces you need are between the brackets)

[  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀]

Step 2: 

On Instagram, write a photo caption you want to use, use the space bar once, then paste block of spaces from above and remove the brackets. Paste multiple times if you need more lines. Be sure to use the space bar once between the caption and the pasted spaces. Otherwise it doesn’t work.

Step 3:

After you’ve pasted in the block of spaces and removed the brackets, press the space again after your pasted block of spaces, and list out your hashtags. Remember- you can only use 30 hashtags, so don’t go overboard.

Protip: Edit Captions in the Notes App, Then Paste

Edit your captions outside of Instagram, such as in Notes or in a draft text message. Most of the time Instagram won’t save the entire caption when you upload the image, so do your caption editing elsewere. Post the photo first with no caption, then hit the three dots on the photo and click Edit, then paste in your new caption. If you frequently post similar content, you can save hashtag blocks in Notes app and save them for later.

Making Spaces in Your Bio

Do exactly the same thing as above, just paste in the space characters where you want them in your profile bio and test it out by saving and editing until you have it exactly the way you want it.

Next, find the right hashtags to use to get the most engagement as possible on your content.

2021 Update

The above method has worked for quite some time, and still does allow a finer level of customization. However, adding just line breaks to captions and bios just got a whole lot easier.

The new method is to use the return key, with NO SPACES between the words. This is a little un-intuitive because on the iPhone, you have to hit the shift key (arrow up) to see the return key.

Write the first line, and after the last letter hit the return key.

Instagram Marketing Tools

• Iconosquare: Measure your followers and engagement, plus schedule your Instagram posts for the perfect post timing.
• Shorby: Create multiple links in your Instagram bio (instead of just one).
• PublicFast: Run influencer campaigns to access your target audience, instantly.

Postbuilder App