People follow you on Instagram because they like your work. They only become customers once they have an appointment. This guide shows where your Instagram booking link belongs, what to write in the bio line, how to answer a DM with the link without sounding like a bot, and how to tell in the end which bookings really came from Instagram.
Why 'send me a DM' loses appointments
Plenty of salons and studios write under every post: appointment? Send me a DM. It sounds personal, but it costs appointments. The message arrives at 9 pm, you answer the next day at noon between two customers, and by then the person has either booked elsewhere or long put the phone down. An impulse has turned into a task, and tasks get postponed.
The second loss happens inside the chat. Which service, which day, what time, does Thursday work, no, Friday: five messages back and forth for an appointment the person could have booked in a minute. And while you type, the next customer is standing in front of you. The DM still matters, for questions and for people who want to get to know you first. The booking itself belongs on a page that shows free slots at 9 pm too.
Instagram booking link: three places in your profile
Instagram gives you three places where a booking link is clickable. The link in your bio sits permanently under your profile text and is the most important one, because everyone who taps your name lands there. The link sticker in stories is available to every account and leads straight to the page, but disappears after 24 hours unless you save the story as a highlight.
The third place is the action button on a business profile, which appears as Book now in some categories. This button usually works only with selected partner apps. If your software is not on the list, nothing is lost: the bio and the sticker do the same job. What matters is that every place leads to the same page, where the person books without an account and without an app. With terminio, that is the link of your booking page, which you copy from the app.
- Link in bio: permanent, visible to everyone, the most important of the three
- Link sticker in a story: tappable, gone after 24 hours, kept as a highlight
- Action button on a business profile: partner apps only, otherwise use the bio
- Comments and captions: no clickable link, just the words link in bio
Link in bio for bookings: the one line that counts
The bio gives you 150 characters, and most people fill it with hashtags and emojis. Better is one sentence that says what you do, where you are, and what the link does. Balayage and cuts in Leeds. Free slots here: and the link underneath. Someone arriving from a reel then knows within two seconds whether they are in the right place and what happens when they tap.
Use the link itself, not a landing page with eight buttons. Every extra page loses people. If you need several links, Instagram now allows more than one in the bio, so put the booking page first. And change the text when you have gaps: next free appointments from 12 October answers the question of whether tapping is worth it before it is asked.
- Nail studio in north Bristol. Book in one minute: and the link
- Physiotherapy, NHS referral or private. Free slots here: and the link
- Headshots for job applications. Pick a slot, secure your place: and the link
- Massage in Brighton. Three free slots left this week: and the link
Answering a DM without sounding like a bot
Messages still come despite the bio: anything free on Friday? The wrong answer is a bare link. The right one is a sentence that picks up the question, then the link: Friday still has space, pick your time here and it is locked in straight away. The person can tell that someone actually read the message, and still gets the shortest route to an appointment.
Save two or three sentences like that as saved replies in Instagram, so you can send them in five seconds between two customers. One rule: answer with the link even when you could enter the appointment by hand right now. Otherwise the person learns that the DM is the way in, and you stay the bottleneck.
- Friday still has space. Pick your time directly here: link
- Of course. Quickest is here, and the slot is confirmed right away: link
- For balayage I block three hours. You can see the free blocks here: link
- I am in the salon today and slow to reply. Booking works any time here: link
Show free slots in a story once a week
A story on Sunday evening with the free slots for the week brings more bookings in many businesses than any photo of the result. The reason is simple: that is when people plan their week. Show three to five concrete gaps, Tuesday 2 pm, Thursday 10 am, and put the link sticker over them. Anyone who wants a gap taps and sees on the page whether it is still free.
Comments under a post are the third route bookings arrive by: can I come on Saturday? Reply publicly, short and friendly, without a time, and send the link as a DM. That way others see you respond, but the appointment is not negotiated in a comment thread, where everyone reads it and nobody enters it.
What to post after the appointment: the result, with consent
The best content for new bookings is the work you have just done. A before and after, a finished set of nails, a dog after its groom. Ask the person right after the appointment whether you may show the photo, and record the yes, for example in the customer note. For faces and anything that hints at someone's health, you need that consent explicitly. This is orientation, not legal advice.
Under the picture, do not write DM for appointments. Write book through the link in bio. And every now and then show how booking works: a short screen recording of your booking page in a story takes the fear out of it for people who have never booked online.
Measuring which bookings come from Instagram
Whether Instagram brings appointments or only likes is something you see in your calendar, not in Instagram. Two ways are easy. The first: a separate address for Instagram, for example with a short suffix at the end of the link that you use only in the bio. The second: a question at booking, how did you find us, with Instagram as one of the options.
Count for one month. If 20 of 80 bookings come through Instagram, you know what the Sunday story is worth and can decide whether to keep it. Instagram itself shows you the taps on your bio link in Insights. Compare that figure with your bookings: many taps and few appointments mean the booking page asks too much or shows no free slots.
