Photo: Khamosh Pathak
One of the many hierarchies of Instagram has been the link-in-stories feature. You only got access to it if you had more than 10,000 followers, or if you had a verified account, so most users couldn’t add a link directly from their Instagram story. This is also why the link aggregators for Instagram bios got popular.
But now, almost everyone can add links to their Instagram Stories (users who violate Instagram’s community guidelines won’t have access to it). Instagram has also changed how the feature works—the whole “Swipe Up” thing is no more, and instead, links show up as stickers. Here’s how it works.
How to add links to your Instagram Stories as stickers
Instagram is slowly rolling this feature out to all its users across the globe. So if you don’t have it yet, update your Instagram app and check back again in a couple of days.
To get started, open the Instagram app and swipe right to go to the Instagram Stories interface. Here, you can use media from your library, or you can create new media using the Stories interface.
Once you’re done, tap the Stickers button from the top, or swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Tap the new “Link” button in the Stickers menu.
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Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
From the Add Link screen, type in, or paste in a valid link. Then, tap the “Done” button.
A new floating sticker with the website name will show up. You can move it around wherever you like. You can make it smaller or bigger using the pinch-in and out gesture, and tap the sticker for different styling options.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Once you’re done, you can share the story with all your followers.
Opening links using the sticker is also pretty easy. Just tap the sticker, then tap the “Visit Link” button to open the link in the built-in Instagram browser.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
From here, you can use the three-dotted Menu button to open the link in any browser of your choice.
