As of April 2024, there are over 2 billion active users on Instagram. In fact, according to Similarweb’s global ranking of websites, Instagram is the fifth most visited website globally. Therefore, it makes sense to market your business or product on Instagram. Many social media platforms allow clickable links within posts which allow users to visit the website directly. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Instagram. So how do you create clickable links on Instagram?

Profile

You can add a link to your website, blog and more in your profile. Click edit profile, add external link and enter the URL and title. It makes sense to post the link for the place where most of your information can be found. For example, for Red Desk Virtual’s Instagram account, we have a link to our blog. This is because most of our social media posts are related to articles on our blog. Therefore, instead of providing a link in your posts (which aren’t clickable), you could say something like “link in the bio”.

Although you can provide several links in your profile, only the first one is visible. If you have multiple hyperlinks you want to list, why not create a Linktree?

Stories

You can use a Link Sticker to add a clickable link to your story. Follow these instructions (this works on Instagram app on your mobile device and not desktop):

• Click your profile pic and you can add to story
• Take a photo or upload one already on your device
• Tap the sticker icon and select the Link Sticker
• Type in your link – you can change how it appears ie instead of showing the link to the website you can say “Buy your tickets now” so do play about with this option
• You can then move the link (this will appear right in the middle image otherwise)
• The story will be on Instagram for 24 hours
• If your Facebook account is linked then it will be shared on there too

Highlights

Once you have created your Instagram story with the clickable link, you can add it to highlights. Once again this can be added to and edited on your phone.

Red Desk offers a complete Social Media Management service.  We work with our clients to create a tailor-made Social Media Plan that best reflects their business.  We can create a one-off campaign to promote an event / new service or work on a monthly campaign package creating a strategy and content to target your desired audience. If you want additional support for your small business, please get in touch: mel@reddesk.co.uk.