How To Add a Link to an Instagram Story

With more and more users familiarizing themselves with Instagram and businesses using the popular platform for marketing and sales, it’s likely that you’ve wanted to share a link on your profile. So, a frequently asked question is, “How do I share a link on my Instagram story?”

Gone are the days of needing 10,000 followers or a verified account, but the steps have changed. Peep the instructions on how to work that link below.

Customizing Your Links

There are a couple of changes that you can make to your Insta links. If you want to display a word or phrase to draw in your audience, you can alter the sticker text after adding the URL. So, instead of the full website domain, you can display text that’s more personalized, catchy, or relevant—whatever you want!

After you create the desired text and hyperlink, you can change the color of the link sticker. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to personalize the color fully, but there are four variations to choose from by tapping through.

Are There Any Other Limitations?

The main limitation to links in Instagram is that you can only add one link to each story, so if you want to share multiple links this way, you also have to share multiple stories.

Aside from this, there are link limitations across the entire platform. Similarly to stories, you can only include one link in your bio section. They also don’t allow clickable links at all in post captions or comments, so any link that you share on your feed is plain text and your audience is required to copy and paste—which is also made near-impossible and might deter people from going to the URL.

If you have multiple links to share, either through stories or posts, there are workarounds! You’ve probably come across posts where the page owner redirects you to their bio via a ‘Link in Bio’ caption—maybe you’ve even seen it on the Smallpdf profile!

There might be some limitations depending on which provider you use, such as how many active links you can have at a time, but it allows you to share multiple clickable links while still only having one link in your bio.

Why Would Instagram Impose Such Restrictions?

Instagram likely wants to restrict users from exiting their platform. By doing so, Instagram can maximize the engagement level of their core user base within the app. All forms of engagement: comments, shares, and likes are produced solely on the platform.

For businesses, the insert link function to stories allows brands to establish sales/marketing activities straight from the app itself—solidifying Instagram as a profitable acquisition channel. Shops can post links to their e-commerce, event organizers can share links to sign-up pages, and bloggers can generate traffic to their, well, blogs!

It’s a rather smart move, considering how the app’s popularity has thrived over the last couple of years. You’d be surprised at how much time you spend on Instagram by just glancing through the newsfeed throughout the day. To check this data, open up your profile, and hit the ‘Your activity’ tab.

Making Digital Work Easy

Whether you’re still working from home or simply want to move away from physical documentation—we’re right there with you. It’s not always a smooth transition, but digital work shouldn’t impede your productivity. In fact, it should do the exact opposite, which is where we come in.

Smallpdf has 20+ tools to compress, edit, and sign electronic documents in a heartbeat, through the online platform, Smallpdf Desktop App, and Smallpdf Mobile App—particularly useful if you work with social media and spend a lot of time on your phone!

If your daily workload has anything related to PDFs, please check our tool chest out—you’re in for a treat!