Instagram Stories has long offered a “swipe up” feature to help influencers, businesses, and verified accounts share links with their followers or anyone viewing their Stories. However, the social media platform owned by Facebook is now deprecated popular scroll-up links feature in favor of a new approach – Link Sticker. Yes, instead of swiping up, you will now have to tap on an anchor tag to browse content shared on Instagram Stories. In this article, we will teach you how to add a link to Instagram Stories using Link Stickers.
Adding Links to Instagram Stories: A Step-by-Step Guide (2021)
Instagram was initially testing Link Stickers to allow anyone to add links to Stories, but apparently The feature will remain exclusive to influencer/business accounts with 10,000+ followers or verified accounts. So if you have swipe up links before, you’ll automatically see the link tag when editing a story.
In this article, we’ve included details on why Instagram is removing swipe up links, as well as instructions for getting started with the Instagram Stories ‘Link sticker’. There’s also a quick comparison between the swipe up links and the new link sticker, so dive in now!
What Is An Anchor Tag in Instagram Stories?
As of August 30, Instagram has deprecated swipe up links and moved its functionality to Link Stickers. Anchor Tags are actually A new way for influencers and eligible accounts to share links with their followers via Instagram Stories. Instead of swiping up, users will now have to tap the anchor tag that creators added to their Stories. For example, take a look at the new Instagram Link Sticker below from a viewer’s point of view:
In the preview you will see the anchor tag containing the domain name and the top-level domain. To visit the link, you have to double-tap the anchor tag. Tapping it for the first time will reveal a ‘Visit Link’ button. Then you have to tap ‘Visit Link’ to open the linked website in your favorite web browser. It is worth noting that The total number of links you can add via the ‘Link sticker’ in your Instagram Story is one..
Adding Links to Instagram Stories Using the Link Tag
1. To start using link stickers, open Instagram app and swipe left from home feed to enter Story creation UI. Here select an image from your gallery or select ‘Create’ (Aa) for a colorful background. Then press the Sticker icon at the top of the screen.
2. When the Stickers panel opens, you will notice that there is a new Link sticker. Tap on and you will see a text box to add the URL of the website you want to share with your audience.
3. After pasting the URL, tap ‘Done’ in the top right corner to add the Link sticker to your Instagram Story. You can then place the sticker anywhere in your Story and add a call-to-action GIF to highlight it.
Adding Links to Instagram Stories Without 10K Followers
If you don’t have 10,000 followers or a verified Instagram account, use this nifty IGTV trick to direct users to the website of your choice. Now let’s see how you can add links to your Instagram Stories without 10,000 followers:
1. As mentioned above, the trick to sharing clickable links on Instagram Stories involves posting an IGTV video. You can do Stream videos between 59 seconds and 15 minutes long on IGTV. To upload a new IGTV video, press the ‘+’ icon in the top right corner of your profile and select ‘IGTV Video’ from the drop-down menu.
2. Before posting the video, Add the link of the website you want to share in the description. This is important because the swipe up link will direct the viewers to the IGTV video and then you will need to explicitly ask the followers to check the description of the website link. After adding the link in the description press the ‘Post to IGTV’ button to share the video.
3. After posting the video, you have to share it on your Instagram Story. Follow this nifty guide to learn how to share posts, reels and IGTV videos to Instagram Stories using the new ‘Reshare’ hashtag.
4. Your viewers can now tap the IGTV video in your Instagram Story to see a ‘Watch IGTV video’ option. Tapping ‘Watch IGTV video’ will take them to the video. Now, when your viewers check the description of the video, they will see a clickable link While this process isn’t all that convenient, it’s a smart solution, especially if you want to increase organic reach on Instagram.
Why Did Instagram Remove the Swipe Up Links?
If you’re wondering why Instagram chose to remove the tried-and-tested swipe links from the platform, here’s what the company had to say. inside interaction with BoundaryInstagram points out that swipe-up links are deprecated: “make the story-making experience easy” and offer more “creative control”.
So what additional feature do you get with link stickers? Well, it has two major benefits. Unlike swipe up links where you can’t decide where the swipe up action should appear (it’s at the bottom by default), You can choose to place the anchor tag anywhere in your Story. You can also resize the stickers so that they are highly visible to the viewer.
Another advantage of link stickers is Ability to reply to Stories with Links. Viewers cannot DM the creator directly from a Story with scroll-up links, as the scroll-up link UI replaces the DM text bar. However, this is not the case with link stickers. You can still message the creator while viewing the Story, as you can see in the comparison below:
Instagram Links Swipe Up and Anchor Tags: Which Is Better?
When comparing swipe up links to link stickers, it’s clear that swipe up links are more user friendly. It’s popular, everyone is used to it, and it offers a neat way to navigate links. However, it comes at the expense of redirecting users to a third-party website. By replacing swipe up links with link stickers, Instagram seems to be making subtle changes to preserve user engagement.
For example, instead of visiting the website and asking a question in the support chat there, viewers can contact the creator directly through Instagram, which is also time spent in-app. As a content platform that is no longer a photo-sharing app, Instagram’s move to deprecate swipe-up links seems like a conscious decision to keep users on the platform longer.
Now that you know why Instagram has removed swipe links for Instagram Stories in favor of link stickers, which would you prefer? Let us know in the comments section below.
Use Link Stickers on Instagram to Share Links with Followers
This brings us to the end of our guide to adding links to Instagram Stories using the new Link hashtag. In the meantime, if you don’t see the option to share posts to Instagram Stories, check out our latest guide to resharing posts to your Instagram Story. For more such tips, check out our article on the best Instagram tips and tricks.