Instagram finally lets everyone add links to their stories

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, and to prevent abuse on the platform, there are some features that you need to jump through additional hoops to get. One major feature that was locked behind a follower count was the ability to share links to your stories. 

Previously, you needed to either be verified or have a large number of followers to share links onto your Instagram story, which meant a lot of people couldn’t share links. Now that’s changing, as Instagram is finally letting anyone add a link to their story in the form of a sticker if they want to.

The feature (via The Verge) will apparently be removed from accounts that use it to share misinformation or hate speech, meaning that it will still be policed, just that everyone will have it by default. Previously, you could add a “swipe up” gesture to stories if you met the criteria to be able to share links to your story, though the company phased that out and introduced link stickers back in June.

To add a link to your story, head into the sticker tool from the top navigation bar after taking a photo for your story, tap the “Link” sticker, and enter the desired URL. It then functions like any other sticker on a Stories post. You no longer need to stick the link in your bio and tell people to navigate to your profile manually to access whatever content you’re trying to share. 

Posts still can’t contain URLs, and Instagram stressed in June that this wouldn’t be changing. Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product, told The Verge back in June that there’s “no plan” to bring link stickers to the feed or any other part of the app.

Instagram has been working on a few other features aimed at helping creators, such as practice mode for Live, and rolling out Live scheduling, too. It lets Live creators schedule their Live streams up to 90 days in advance, and creators will then be able to share it via Stories and Feed posts.