The Importance Of Links On Instagram – Best Hacks For Your Profile

The Issue

If you’ve used Instagram for any period of time, you know what the problem is.

Instagram is not friendly to links. You can’t copy-paste links onto photo threads. You can’t use them in the description of pictures, either. Well, you can, but they won’t be “hyperlinked”, meaning nobody can just tap on them and follow them. They’ll have to type the link in manually.

Very few people today put links in manually. Granted, most do know-how, but it’s quite a hassle, and one mistake will foul the whole thing up. That gets frustrating—especially if you’re using a touchscreen phone, and you’re over the age of ten. Adult fingers and touchscreen interfaces don’t mix so well as software engineers would hope.

So what do you do if you want to have solid links on your Instagram profile? Well, as it turns out, there is a bit of a “hack”, and we’ll explore it here, as well as a few things you can do to make the most of it. Because, at the end of the day, it’s quite important to post links on Instagram; especially if you’re an influencer of some stripe.

1. Stories, Pictures, And Vids

First, there’s this tactic: you can put a link in your Instagram story, in the pictures you post, or in the videos you take. People will still have to type it in, but they have the option of sharing the “link” to the post itself elsewhere. This means they can go to their laptop and use the link there a little bit more easily. Certainly, it will depend on the user.

You can also copy-paste links into descriptions of stories, videos and pictures, then give readers an instruction on how to use them. Tell them to open the link up in a computer browser. You can message the Instagram link however you like, and when they open it on a device with a keyboard and cursor, the link can be selected, copied, pasted, and used.

So you can include the links in pictures, videos, and “stories”, as well as in the description of such content, and furthermore on the “threads” beneath such media. You might just have to advise users to explore such links on another device. Be sure to let them know they can type it into their phone as well, if that’s more their style—most people won’t, though.

2. The Money Post: Adding Links Into Your BIO On A Schedule

Your BIO (short for “biography) is where you can post a hyperlink that can be “tapped” or otherwise accessed directly from a smartphone as a regular hyperlink should be. The thing is, if you want to change that link, you’ll have to switch up your BIO at intervals. That can be a little bit irritating. However, there’s actually a workaround.

One of the best social media scheduling apps is called Sked, and at the following link you’ll find some notable Sked social deals that can help you optimize your Instagram account for greatest visibility. For Instagram linking in the BIO, just use Sked to update your profile as necessary. This keeps you regular, saves time, and tends to work well.

3. Instagram Links On Facebook, And Promo Links In The Thread

Another thing you can do is share the links of your Instagram content on Facebook, then put the links of the sites you’re looking to drive traffic toward in the “thread” of the post. When sharing links on Facebook, you also have the option of adding additional links into the main post; though this may mess up how the algorithms populate images.

That is to say: if you want an Instagram picture or video to crop up, and you copy a link, but then you want that video to direct viewers somewhere else, so you put that link in the same post, Facebook is likely to choose one of those links over the other. It’s best to put such links in the thread after the post.

Making The Most Of A Finicky Social Media Platform

There’s more you can do to promote and specify social media links and links to other content on your Instagram account. These things are just a few suggestions.

That said, co-opting Facebook with promo links in the comment thread, making the most of your profile BIO, and linking within stories or vids (while directing traffic to Facebook for further engagement) represent key ways of using Instagram to drive traffic.