WASHINGTON : Instagram’s link stickers, which let users include hyperlinks in Stories in the form of stickers, will now be available to use for everyone on the popular photo-sharing platform.

As per The Verge, the Facebook-owned social media application announced the news recently. Instagram had started testing link stickers in June, but until now the feature has been limited to verified accounts or accounts with a large number of followers.

According to the social media giant, link stickers are useful for anyone from businesses linking out to their products to activists linking out to external resources. But Instagram stated that anyone can benefit from link sharing to engage with their followers. It also said that accounts repeatedly sharing misinformation or hate speech will lose access.

To add a link, head into the sticker tool from the top navigation bar after uploading content to your IG Story, tap the ‘Link’ sticker and enter the desired URL. It then functions like any other sticker on a Stories post.

When Instagram announced the link stickers feature in June, the company stressed that they’re only meant for Stories posts and said it had no plans to bring them to the main Instagram feed or other parts of the app. That remains the status quo today.

The link stickers feature has now entirely replaced “swipe up,” which was how Instagram users could previously link out to external webpages from their Stories, and which the platform discontinued in August.

But with today’s news, link stickers are now more widely available than swipe up ever was, since the old feature was only available to verified accounts or accounts with more than 10,000 followers. (ANI)