Instagram offers a way for some accounts to include a link in their Stories through a swipe-up gesture. The company is expanding upon this feature and is now testing stickers with links in Stories, this time with a wider user base.
Attaching a link in Stories that can be accessed with a swipe gesture is only allowed for accounts that are verified or have at least 10000 accounts. This does limit the ability to post link for a lot of users, especially for those who would like to direct people to website resources.
Instagram is now testing stickers with links attached to them with a small set of users. Having sticker links will enable followers to reply to the Story too, which is currently not possible for Stories with swipe-up links.
One of the parameters Instagram is looking at is the amount of spam and misinformation appearing in the tests, along with the type of links that users are posting.
Instagram’s head of product, Vishal Shah, revealed that sticker links were the eventual goal for Instagram Stories and that once the test is complete, it will likely be rolled out to everybody.