Links Don't Work on Instagram
Did you know that links don’t work on Instagram?
All the time I see businesses posting links in their Instagram post descriptions – which might sound like a great idea.
“I want people to follow a link from my post, so I’ll leave one as a call to action.”
This seems like a great idea, except that links don’t work on Instagram. Instead, your audience will be presented with an unclickable link. In terms of user experience, you could argue that it would be better not leaving a link.
So what are the alternatives?
Option 1: Link in Bio
You may have also seen businesses telling you to see the link in their bio as a call to action. This strategy works for businesses that will only ever be promoting one thing, or are trying to drive impressions on a single link.
It is a common strategy for businesses to update their bio with a new link each time they need a different destination for their call-to-action. However, this means that once the link is updated a second time, it will no longer point to the correct location.
For a majority of your audience, this will be okay, because they will digest a majority of your content on their feed. However, the person who is more interested (and potentially more likely a customer) may look at some older posts and find that the call to action doesn’t take them where they expect.
Option 2: External Service
An alternative choice is to utilise a service such as linktr.ee. This enables you to have a link in your bio that has multiple links for a user to choose from.
See this example from the state of Queensland – linktr.ee/queensland
Linktree enables you to link to an unlimited number of websites for free, however, unless you upgrade to their pro tier ($6usd/month at time of writing) you don’t have total control over the colour scheme, branding and you are required to show the Linktree logo on your link.
Option 3: Custom Webpage
The third option is to have a custom page on your own branded website that serves as a landing page for your incoming Instagram audience. You can even tailor the content specifically toward them, having total control over the look, feel and link structure.
Make it easy for your Instagram followers to find the content that they are looking for.
Bevan Kay Designs can build a custom Instagram landing page for your business as part of your website development. Landing pages can also be created, even if we aren’t building you a whole website!