Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms with over 1 billion monthly active users. Are you looking to funnel your Instagram followers to your website, ecommerce site, or blog?
There are not many spots on Instagram where you can put a clickable link to do so. In fact, the only place you can put a clickable link on Instagram is in your bio, and they only allow one link.
Most people use a link-in-bio tool to help them create a link directory, but isn’t there any other way to direct people to your outside website on Instagram?
There is one other place you can put a clickable link on Instagram, and that’s in your Instagram story. This is an absolute must-have if you’re trying to boost your website traffic, increase lead generation and conversion, or see a rise in profits.
Do you know how to add a link to your Instagram story? It’s pretty simple, but there are a few key things you need to know about adding a link to your IG story because you can get started.
After you check out this post, you’ll know:
- Who can add an link to Instagram stories
- How to add a link to your Instagram story
- Benefits of Instagram story links
- 3 pro tips for creating Instagram stories that work
If you haven’t taken advantage of this feature yet, what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!
Who Can Add an Instagram Story Link?
You may have seen many brands and businesses taking advantage of an Instagram link in their story, also known as the swipe up feature, but how can they do it?
The truth is that this feature is unfortunately not available to all Instagram users, so if you feel like you’ve never seen the option before, you may not have access to it just yet.
You have to have strong Instagram growth before you’ll be able to add a link to your story, so let’s take a look at some of those requirements before we find out how to add a link to IG stories.
Instagram Business Profiles
The first thing you have to have in order to put a link in an IG story is a business or creator profile. If your account is a personal Instagram account, you won’t see this feature.
If you want to switch your profile to a professional business or creator account, here’s how:
- Tap the Menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the right corner of the IG app
- Navigate to Settings
- Tap Account
- Scroll all the way down and you’ll see the option Switch to Professional Account
Select this option and then follow the steps, adding your contact information as well as choosing a business category for your profile.
After you’ve done this, your profile will be set as a business account, and you’ll have access to new features like Instagram insights, call-to-action buttons for your bio, and more, including the Instagram swipe up feature to add a link to your Instagram story.
This isn’t it, however— there’s one more thing your business or creator account must have in order to access the feature.
Accounts with 10K Followers
You won’t be able to have this feature unless you have at least 10,000 Instagram followers or more. If you haven’t hit that goal yet, you’ll want to focus on Instagram follower growth so that you can add a link to your Instagram story.
If you’re looking to get more Instagram followers, using an Instagram growth service like Growthoid can help you get there. Growthoid allows you to reach more Instagram followers in your target audience through organic engagements that are perpetuated by your dedicated account manager.
Your account manager will engage with users in your target audience without any bots or automation, so you will get the right growth and see your relevant followers steadily increase over time. You can save time and focus on content creation and other strategies while you get your follower count up to 10k.
Having high-quality content on your Instagram account is a non-negotiable when it comes to follower growth. Even if you have thousands of users looking at your Instagram account, you won’t grow a single follower if you don’t give them something to follow for.
This includes photos that are visually pleasing and eye-catching, captions that encourage engagement through calls-to-action (CTAs), as well as effective hashtags.
When you have a solid hashtag strategy, you can get your content discovered by more people in your target audience through hashtag feeds that get the right people looking at your account.
Using an Instagram growth service, creating top-notch content, using effective captioning, and hashtags will push your account over the 10k follower requirement that you need to gain access to Instagram story links.
After you have 10,000 followers, the feature will be unlocked and you’ll be able to implement it in your stories.
There’s one alternative to these requirements which we’ll discuss before getting to the how-to guide.
Verified Instagram Accounts
The only way to bypass these two requirements and have the Instagram story link feature is to have a verified account.
What is a verified account?
A verified account on Instagram is when Instagram has confirmed who you are and has issued you a small blue checkmark next to your username. This is typically done for businesses, brands, and public figures to ensure that users can distinguish the official accounts from any other duplicates on Instagram.
If you’re not a public figure or a brand/business with a lot of contributions to your Instagram community in the way of valuable content and lots of activity, you are unlikely to be issued a verified badge, but you can apply at any time.
You can request a verified badge via your Instagram settings; navigate Menu > Settings > Account > Request Verification.
There, you’ll submit a copy of your ID and submit the required information; Instagram will let you know the decision. If you aren’t approved, you can apply again after the 30 day period, but it’s a good idea to continue focusing on your Instagram growth and activity during that period.
If you’re ready to see how to add a link to your Instagram story, read on! If you’re not there yet, skip down below to see our top Instagram story tips for a stronger Instagram content game.
How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Story in 3 Easy Steps
Alright, so you’ve got a business profile with 10k+ followers, or you’re verified, and you’re ready to swipe up. We’ve laid out the process of adding a link to your Instagram story in three simple steps.
You’ll then be able to enjoy more Instagram growth as well as website traffic funneling and increased lead generation and conversion. Woo hoo!
Step 1: Create an Instagram Story
Open your Instagram app and tap on your profile picture in the top left corner. This will open the Instagram stories camera. You can also simply swipe to the right to open the camera as well (Instagram hack!)
Here, you can either take a photo directly from the camera or choose a photo from your photos from your camera roll by tapping the album icon at the bottom left of the screen, or just swipe up.
Once your image is ready to go, you’ll see a variety of icons at the top of the screen. One of these icons will be a hyperlink icon that looks like a small chain. Tap that icon.
Step 2: Add a URL
Business accounts under 10k followers: If you don’t have 10k followers and a business profile, you will still be able to do a few different things using a similar-looking chain icon. Tap that icon and you will be taken to a menu titled more options.
Here, you have the option to link to one of your IGTV videos, which will create a swipe up feature in your IG stories.
You can also tag business partners and use branded content here. You won’t be able to put in any other links, however.
Business accounts over 10k followers or Verified: If you have access to the feature, when you click on this icon, you’ll be taken to the same menu, but you’ll now have an option under the IGTV video option that says URL.
Tap that, and you can then enter the desired link so that users can swipe up to visit it. You can preview it before posting if you so choose.
Step 3: Publish Your Story
Now that you have inserted your URL, you’re ready to post your Instagram story. It’s that simple!
Click Done when you’ve finished adding the URL, and it will take you back to the IG story screen and you can post the story as you would any other story. It takes just a minute to add a link to your Instagram story, so the feature is incredibly powerful and can do a lot of good for your IG account and external sites.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using Instagram story links.
Benefits of Instagram Story Links
There are quite a few benefits of adding a link to your Instagram story. It makes it exponentially easier for people to visit your website because the link will be just a touch away. This means they won’t have to go back to your bio to visit— they only swipe up, and they’re there!
You’ll be able to drive much more website traffic by using Instagram stories; users can even shop from right within the app, making the purchasing process so much easier. They can even check out your blog, homepage, or any other site you link to without leaving Instagram.
There are so many real-world examples of how businesses, creators, and influencers benefit from the swipe up feature, so let’s take a look at some examples.
Liane V
A successful influencer, content creator, and entrepreneur, @Lianev uses swipe up in very engaging and enjoyable ways.
Her main profile @lianev, doesn’t use it as much, but her store’s Instagram @shoplianev makes great use of the swipe up feature to direct users to her e-store.
She doesn’t simply create static content that tells people to swipe up, she creates fun and enjoyable videos that are relatable, building a relationship with her followers and always being at the forefront of her brand.
She also uses catchy CTAs to direct people to swipe up; if you don’t let your followers know they can swipe up to access products or content, they might miss the feature altogether.
If you’re looking for awesome ways to implement swipe up in your content, definitely don’t miss Liane V— she’s got a lot going for her and you may be able to get inspired by her content and CTAs!
H&M
It’s not just influencers that are making use of the swipe-up feature; big name brands do it just as often. H&M is a great example.
H&M doesn’t simply link out to their stores and products. Instead, they also give background information about their products, how they’re made, the creators and designers behind it, and more.
They may link to products occasionally, but using your swipe up feature to direct users to your other social networks, make connections with issues that are important, as well as give more background on your products can help build brand loyalty.
What’s more, you can link out to your partners and collaborators, making your reach even that much stronger. Nike also does this very well; they often feature athletes and collaborators, using the swipe up link to direct users to download their app.
All in all, there are many things you can do with Instagram stories and the swipe up feature, so take note of the brands, businesses, influencers, and creators that are using it to inspire your own content!
Artists, Actors, and Musicians
Another way that you can use Instagram stories is to follow the suit of artists, actors, and musicians, linking out to current projects and new endeavors that are going on with your brand and business.
Maluma, Colombian heartthrob and superstar, frequently links up to new music and collaborations with other artists via stories, as does other big singers from around the globe.
Household name Jennifer Aniston does, too— she’s promoting the new season of her series “The Morning Show,” using swipe up to direct users to view the trailer.
There are infinite ways that you can use swipe up in creative ways, linking out to content marketing, lead generation forms and sign-up sheets, free trials, and more.
Pro Tips for Instagram Stories
Now that we’ve heard about some awesome examples of using swipe up in Instagram stories, we’re going to break down 3 tips for Instagram stories in general to help you create the best content.
Include a CTA
We’ve talked about CTAs a few times in this post, so they’re definitely something you should be doing in your Instagram stories. A CTA is something that asks users to perform some action.
This could be clicking a link, responding to a story, voting in the poll, choosing an option, sharing with a friend, and more. You should use these in your IG post captions as well as in IG stories.
If you’re using swipe up, you can ask users to visit the link by using text, stickers, GIFs, and more. You could also instruct them to do so if your content allows for that. Make sure your Instagram story links are relevant to the content that your story is about.
For example, if you’re talking about a new blog post, don’t link to your YouTube channel. Keep it connected.
Track Instagram Story Insights
Another key element of successful Instagram stories is to use Instagram insights to track analytics. You can view this directly from the story itself if it’s still active, or reviewing after it has expired from the Insights menu.
You should be aware of the following metrics when reviewing Instagram story insights:
- Interactions: what actions did people take from your story? Did they view your sticker or location tag? Did they visit your profile? Did they share or react?
- Reach: how many people did the story reach in general? Consider that number when you see how much engagement and interaction you received.
- Next, Exit, Back: What did the user do when viewing your story? Did they leave? Did they go to the next one? Did they go back to see a previous one or see it again?
Keeping tabs on these metrics can help you understand what content is working and what’s not working so well, that way you can keep your content going forward and performing positively.
Create Awesome Instagram Story Content
This probably goes without saying, but creating awesome Instagram story content is one of the most important things you can do. If you’re not sure about how to create cool stories, check out some popular accounts in your niche to get some ideas.
The more engaging and enjoyable your stories are, the less likely it is that people will navigate away, which means they will probably be back to see your stories in the future and they will appear at the front of your followers’ IG story feed.
Even if you don’t have access to IG story links yet, there are so many things you can do to create stories that keep people coming back for more, like:
- Using video content: people get a closer look at you and your brand through video.
- Tagging: you can tag locations and users in your stories so that it can be shared. Doing that makes it more probable that your story will be shared and seen by more people.
- Posting with stickers and GIFs: Instagram stories is interactive in the sense that you can use polls, questions, ratings, quizzes, and more to get your followers clicking. You can also use GIFs to get their attention. You can even turn your selfie into a GIF, so get experimenting!
- Teasers: when you post a new photo in your Instagram feed, you can use IG stories to tease it and get people to tap to your profile; this increases interactions in your story metrics and gets more people looking at your photo.
- Tell a story: using Instagram stories that all go together can be a great way to show that you are a thoughtful content creator and have creativity and cohesiveness in your content. If you create stories that end up being connected, users will want to keep viewing them to see what’s next.
If you’re struggling with your Instagram stories and want some templates or premade formats to help your content look more professional, check out Canva. They offer some beautiful IG stories templates to give your content a more branded look.
When your Instagram story content is on point, you can give yourself that edge and get closer and closer to your 10k followers if you’re not there yet!
Final Thoughts: Get More Followers with Instagram Stories
All in all, using Instagram story links can greatly benefit your profile, and you should be taking advantage of them if you have the feature. After all, who doesn’t want more web traffic and increased profitability?
If you haven’t gained the feature yet, don’t stress— focus your energy on producing great content and growing your Instagram account. Use an Instagram growth service to save time and keep working on other strategies that will go hand in hand to get you more Instagram followers.
What’s your go-to hack for Instagram stories? Let us know in the comments!
