Your Social Media Profiles Are Doing More Heavy Lifting Than You Think
Here’s something that surprised us when we first saw the data. In the context of social media profile optimization, 58% of Instagram users visit a business profile at least once a month — not a post, not a Reel, the actual profile page (Zebracat pulled this from their research of over 200 marketing statistics).
Oh, and 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business. Ninety percent. That’s not a niche behaviour. That’s basically everyone.
Facebook is a different animal but the story is just as telling. DesignRush reported that over 80% of consumers look up local businesses on Google, and nearly half of them check Facebook as part of that research. That’s a lot of eyeballs landing on your Facebook page. Now here’s the kicker: 85% of businesses have wrong or incomplete information on those pages. That number comes from BrightLocal and when we first read it we thought it had to be inflated. Then we started auditing our own clients’ profiles and… no. It tracks. Wrong phone numbers. Opening hours from two years ago. Bios that say literally nothing.
We audit client profiles regularly as part of our digital marketing services, and the number of businesses we find with outdated info, placeholder bios, or blurry profile pictures is… honestly still shocking. Even brands that are doing great work offline.
The profile itself is the first handshake. And right now, for a lot of businesses, that handshake is limp.
The Facebook Profile: Your Digital Headquarters (That You’re Probably Neglecting)
Facebook gets dismissed a lot in marketing conversations lately. The cool kids are all talking about TikTok. Fair enough. But 3.12 billion monthly active users is 3.12 billion monthly active users. You can’t argue with that number no matter how many TikTok trends you follow.
What IS going somewhere is organic reach — and that makes your profile optimisation even more important, because when someone does land on your page, you need it to do the selling for you.
Your Page Name Is Doing SEO Whether You Know It Or Not
This is one of those things that sounds stupidly simple but makes a real difference. Metricool’s Facebook SEO guide puts it well: your page name should clearly represent your brand AND include a relevant keyword where it makes sense.
A bakery called “Bella” gets more search traction as “Bella Artisan Bakery — Porto” than just “Bella.” Same business, wildly different discoverability.
We had a client who ran a photography studio under a creative name that sounded great on a business card but was completely unsearchable on Facebook. Nobody could find them. We added the city name and the word “photography” to their page title and profile visits jumped noticeably within weeks. Nothing else changed. Just the name.
The About Section Isn’t Optional
This might be the most underused piece of real estate on Facebook. We’ve seen businesses leave it blank. We’ve seen others fill it with a single sentence that says essentially nothing.
What should be in there? Everything a potential customer would need before picking up the phone or walking through your door. Your business description (written like a human, with relevant keywords landing naturally, not crammed in). Your contact details and website. Opening hours that are actually current. Your physical location if you have one.
And here’s an angle most people miss: Facebook’s internal search pulls from this section when deciding whether to show your page. Leave it empty and you’re basically telling Facebook’s algorithm to pretend you don’t exist.
Your Cover Photo Is a Billboard. Treat It Like One.
The cover photo is prime space and most businesses waste it on a generic stock image they uploaded two years ago. This thing sits at the top of your profile. It’s the first visual impression.
Got a seasonal promotion running? That’s your cover photo. Launching something new? Cover photo. Just want to show people what your brand is about? You get the idea. The point is, it should be doing something. And it should change. A cover photo that’s been sitting there since 2024 sends a message — just not the one you want. It says nobody’s home.
Pick a CTA Button That Actually Matches Your Goal
Facebook gives you a call-to-action button right on your profile. “Shop Now,” “Contact Us,” “Sign Up,” “Learn More.” And an alarming number of businesses either leave whatever Facebook picked by default or choose one at random without thinking about it.
A service-based business with a “Shop Now” button is confusing. An ecommerce store with “Learn More” is a missed opportunity. We once audited a client’s page that had “Sign Up” as their CTA when they didn’t even have a newsletter. Small detail? Sure. But it’s the small details that either move someone toward contacting you or make them think you’re not paying attention.
Instagram: Where First Impressions Are Made in Two Seconds Flat
Instagram has 3 billion monthly active users.Over 350 million of those are business profiles. The maths on that should worry you a little. That’s a LOT of businesses fighting for attention from the same pool of people. And those people? They’re making snap judgements about your profile in maybe two seconds. Generous estimate.
Your Bio Has 150 Characters to Make or Break It
150 characters. That’s it. And you somehow need to communicate what your business does, who it’s for, and why someone should care. Good luck? Actually, here’s what we’ve noticed works.
The bios that convert well tend to be blunt. Almost boringly direct. “Social media management for restaurants in Porto.” That kind of thing. Meanwhile the bios that get ignored are the vague inspirational ones. “Passionate about helping brands grow ✨” could be literally anyone. Specificity wins, every time.
Also — line breaks. We’re amazed how many people don’t use them. A wall of text in an Instagram bio is unreadable when someone’s scrolling fast. Break it up. First line: what you do. Second line: who it’s for or where. Third line: what they should do next.
Your One Link Has to Work Overtime
Instagram gives you exactly one clickable link in your bio. One. (Yes, there are link stickers in Stories too, but this is about the profile itself.)
That one link is carrying a ridiculous amount of responsibility. It’s the bridge between “this profile looks interesting” and “I’m now on their website.” And most businesses? They link to their homepage and call it done.
Homepages are fine. But they’re generic by definition. If you’re running a specific campaign or promoting a particular service, linking straight to that page converts better. Or get a link-in-bio tool that turns one URL into several options. We made this switch for a client last year and the difference in profile-to-website traffic was immediate. Nothing else changed.
Story Highlights Are Your Curated Portfolio
Most businesses throw up a couple of Story Highlights and forget about them. Which is a shame, because Zebracat’s research found profiles with active Highlights get 17% higher engagement than those without.
We think of Highlights as a curated portfolio sitting right under your bio. The good ones we’ve seen tend to organise content into themes that actually help visitors — one for client testimonials, one for “how we work,” maybe one for recent projects or a FAQ. The covers should look like they belong to your brand, not like someone grabbed random circle icons from Google Images. And please, if you’ve got a Highlight promoting a Black Friday offer from last November, take it down. It’s not helping.
Visual Consistency Is Not a “Nice to Have”
We’ve visited business profiles where the Facebook cover is blue, the Instagram grid is all pink, the logo doesn’t match across platforms, and the fonts change with every post. That’s not creative range. That’s a brand identity crisis.
Settle on a colour palette. Commit to your fonts. Someone scrolling their feed should recognise your content without checking the username. And please — no blurry photos, no pixelated logos. The visual bar is higher now than it’s ever been, and low-quality images destroy trust faster than almost anything else.
A Quick Note on Content Formats (Because It Affects How Your Profile Looks)
This isn’t a content strategy post, so we’ll keep it brief. But the format of what you post directly shapes how your profile grid looks — and that matters when someone lands on it for the first time.
Social Insider analysed 35 million Instagram posts and found carousels outperforming everything else for engagement in 2025, with static single images dropping 17% year-over-year. If your grid is all single photos, it might be worth mixing in carousels and Reels. Your profile will look more dynamic, and the engagement numbers tend to follow. We’ll dig deeper into content formats in a future post.
One Last Thing: Don’t Set It and Forget It
This sounds like the most boring advice in the post but it might be the most important. Set a quarterly reminder to check both profiles. Is the phone number still right? Are those hours current? Is your cover photo from last winter? Story Highlights promoting something that ended months ago? You’d be surprised how fast things go stale. Or maybe you wouldn’t, because you already know you haven’t checked in a while.
Both platforms give you free analytics — profile visits, website clicks, follower trends, engagement. The businesses that actually look at those numbers regularly are the ones where small tweaks compound into real results. The ones that don’t? They usually end up in our inbox six months later wondering why nothing’s working.
Which brings us to the obvious bit. If you’re looking at your profiles right now with a slight wince, that’s actually progress. We do this for a living at Salty Lavender — profile audits, social media strategy, content planning, the whole picture. If you’d rather hand it to someone who’ll be straight about what’s working and what isn’t, we’re here for that conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I actually update my Facebook and Instagram profiles?
At minimum, every three months. But honestly, any time something meaningful changes — new phone number, new location, seasonal campaign, updated branding — don’t wait for the quarterly review. The businesses with outdated profiles are the ones losing credibility without even realising it. Cover photos in particular should rotate more often. We swap ours out roughly every six to eight weeks.
Does the profile picture really matter that much?
Way more than people give it credit for. That little circle follows you everywhere. Every comment you leave on someone else’s post, every message thread, every search result — there it is. So if it’s blurry, or it’s a photo from your company’s 2019 Christmas party, or it’s a logo that turns into an unreadable blob at small sizes… that’s the impression tagging along with your brand across the entire platform. Stick with your logo, make sure it renders cleanly when it’s tiny, and use the same one on both Facebook and Instagram. Boring advice? Maybe. But the recognition it builds is worth it.
My Instagram bio feels impossible to get right. Any shortcuts?
Honestly, no. But there’s a principle that helps: lead with what you do, not who you are. We keep coming back to this example because it makes the point fast. “Social media management for restaurants in Porto” — that’s specific, it’s searchable, you immediately know if this business is relevant to you. Compare that to “Passionate about helping brands grow” which… could be anyone doing anything. After that, a call-to-action (“Book a free call” or “See our work”) and a link that actually goes somewhere useful. Not your homepage. Somewhere specific.
Are carousels really better than Reels now?
Depends what you’re measuring. If we’re talking pure engagement — people liking, commenting, saving — then yes, carousels are pulling ahead. That’s based on Social Insider’s analysis of 35 million posts, so it’s not a small sample. But Reels are still the better tool for reaching people who don’t already follow you. They’re how you get discovered. We’ve landed on using both but for different jobs. Reels are the net you cast wide. Carousels are what keeps people once they’ve arrived.
Should I bother with Facebook or just focus on Instagram?
We get asked this all the time and the answer is always annoyingly unsatisfying: it depends on where your customers actually spend their time. A local restaurant or a B2B consultancy? Facebook is probably still their best bet. A fashion brand targeting under-35s? Instagram, no contest. We’ve genuinely seen businesses crush it on one platform and get zero traction on the other, for no reason beyond audience fit. The only wrong answer is spreading yourself across both when you only have the time and energy to do one properly. Do one well first. Expand later.
