Instagram has now unveiled one of its most requested feature enhancements, allowing users to include up to five links in their IG profile, enhancing the platform's ability to drive traffic.
According to 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 shown in the photos, your Instagram bio now displays how many connections you have available via profile linking. When you tap it, users will see a Linktree-style summary of the many link options you've enabled.
This is bad news for Linktree and other linking applications. Instagram's aversion to external links has long been a driving force behind the use of third-party link aggregation tools. Still, now users will be able to recreate that capability within the app itself, which will no doubt lead to a drop in paid subscriptions to third-party apps.
However, some of these tools provide branding options that could serve as an inducement and additional link display possibilities. It's also become such a regular behavior that users don't find it odd, so even with this new capability, some organizations may continue to employ third-party link tools.
However, because new users can now perform the same thing in-app, the number of unique users will likely be limited.
It's beneficial for users, though, and there are a variety of methods for companies and artists to exploit this capability to direct traffic to different URLs to maximize their brand visibility.
Instagram has been testing it since 2021, so it's surprising that it's taken this long to integrate it, but it's decided that now is the time to move forward.
Go to 'Edit profile' > 'Links' > 'Add external link' to add several links to your IG profile. You can then drag and drop your links into the order you want them to show in the app.
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