As I’ve mentioned before when talking about Using Reels For Business or Using Instagram, this platform is my favourite of all of them. More than 1 billion active users flock to it every day with at least half of them watching Instagram Stories on a regular basis. 

This makes Instagram Stories a great place to create and share content, boost awareness and get more sales and leads. You may have even noticed that some accounts, when they’ve reached over 10,000 followers, then have the option to add a ‘swipe up’ feature to allow their account to share links directly and easily with their followers. 

Influencer Marketing Hub describes it as: The Swipe Up feature is available to Instagrammers with more than 10,000 followers and allows those users to add a link that their followers can get to by swiping up while watching their stories. This is a huge deal on a platform where you're limited to a single clickable link in your Instagram bio. 

With the Swipe Up feature, brands and influencers can promote specific products, content, or signup pages that followers can access right from Instagram Stories instead of going to the bio screen to click a link there. And, you can change the link from Story to Story, if you want.

If you’re thinking ‘How do I get 10,000 followers right now?’—that’s a question I get a lot and unfortunately the answer doesn’t exist. Working toward the magic 10k will take time and dedication to your engagement.  

So how do you share a link if you don’t have the ‘magic 10k’? 

Link in Bio

The link in bio is standard to all accounts, but if you can only have one link, consider using a link tree app like https://campsite.bio/ to have more than one link.  

Or you can use a custom page on your own website, as I have here, to bring people to your website and provide them with a series of options you can keep up to date.

Send the URL in a private message 

Instagram is all about engagement, so make sure you’re engaging regularly. If someone asks about a product, service, blog post or other—slide into their DM (Direct messages) and provide your link there. 

Use IGTV to Swipe Up

As I mentioned in this post about using Instagram for business, IGTV videos are from 1-60 minutes long. To use it, you need to download the IGTV app, click Settings in the right-hand corner and click ‘Create Channel’ to get started. 

Add a video to your IGTV account and then you automatically get a swipe up when you share in your stories! Makes the intimidation of going live on Instagram totally worth it. 

So those are three ways you can add links using Instagram without having 10k users. Adding links is important to continue offering value and building your reputation online. If you keep your chin up and keep engaging regularly, you’ll have enough followers pretty soon that you won’t need to use any of these! 

Know of another way to add a link? Drop it in the comments below!