by Andrew Hutchinson

Instagram has today launched one of its most requested feature updates, giving users the ability to add up to five links in their IG bio, expanding on its capacity to drive traffic.

As per Instagram:

“Starting today, the update will make it easier for creators and other users to highlight their passions, bring awareness to causes they care about, promote brands they love, showcase their personal business, and more.” 

As you can see in these screenshots, your Instagram bio will now display how many links you have available, via profile linking. When tapped, users will then get a Linktree-like overview of the various link options that you’ve enabled.

Which is bad news for Linktree, and other linking tools. Instagram’s opposition to external links has long been the key driver of usage for third-party link aggregator tools, but now, people will be able to replicate that capacity within the app itself, which will no doubt see many abandon their paid subscriptions to third-party apps.

But then again, some of these tools enable branding options that could still act as an enticement, along with more link display options. It’s also become such a standard behavior now that users don’t find it jarring, so maybe, some businesses will stick with third-party link tools, even with this new capacity available.

But it will likely limit new users signing on, as they can now do the same in-app.

It’s good for users, though, and there’s a range of ways that brands and creators can utilize this capacity to drive traffic to various URLs to maximize their brand presence.

It’s actually surprising that Instagram’s taken this long to implement it, as it’s been testing it since 2021, but now, it’s decided, is the time to push ahead.

How to add multiple links to your IG profile: go to ‘Edit profile’ > ‘Links’ > ‘Add external link’. From there, you can drag and drop to order your links as you’d like them to appear in the app.

Courtesy: socialmediatoday.com