Instagram Hack Lets You Share Links On Stories Even Without 10K Followers
Image via ALEX_UGALEK / Shutterstock.com
Everyone—whether small business owners, creators or anyone hoping to share an article—could benefit from the coveted ‘Swipe Up’ feature on Instagram stories that directs followers to a webpage. Unfortunately, this tool is currently only available for Instagram accounts with at least 10,000 followers.
The good news is that Instagram is testing link-sharing on stories for a broader set of users, as the company’s VP of Product Vishal Shah confirmed with The Verge. Here, links will appear as stickers that others can tap on.
While everyone else awaits for that to be an official feature, though, there are ways to add the ‘Swipe Up’ function to your Instagram stories, as social marketing tool Later reveals in a blog post. They’re not as straightforward as the feature that larger accounts are entitled to, but they’ll do if you absolutely wish to direct followers to your storefront or an article.
The trick, it seems, is to create IGTV videos, which let you add multiple clickable links to their descriptions. This turns IGTV clips into “landing pages” for your profile.
First, you’ll have to record a video that’s at least 60 seconds long and upload it as an IGTV video. You can then insert your links in the description.
To enable the ‘Swipe Up’ gesture, create an Instagram story and tap the link icon at the top of your screen, then select ‘+ IGTV Video’ and add the video you just recorded to your story.
Viewers can then swipe up your story to jump over to your IGTV video, where they’ll also be able to tap on links in the video’s caption.
For more details, head over to Later’s full blog post, where it also details a second way for anyone to add links to Instagram stories. You can also check out the video below for a step-by-step tutorial on sharing links to longform IGTV videos.
[via Later, cover image via ALEX_UGALEK / Shutterstock.com]
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