Sorry, you're never going to get a clickable link in your Instagram grid posts
You can't add a link into a grid post on Instagram and you'll never be able to — all because Instagram doesn't want to be a home for news.
There are many things I do not like about Instagram. I don't like that you can't search for individual people who have seen your Story posts. I don't like that when I mark a message as "unread" after reading it, it doesn't mark the message as "unread" for the person who sent it to me. I don't like it when people I follow post music on the carousels, and I don't like all the ads I get when I'm just trying to like photos of my hot and interesting friends.
I also don't like that when I have a link to share in a grid post, I can't put a clickable link in the caption of the post or the comment of the post. The only place you can put a link people can click on Instagram is on Stories or in your link in bio — never directly in a grid post, which is annoying. For instance, people who put a GoFundMe on their grid post have to ask people to navigate to their profile and click the link in bio to interact with it; journalists can't post their work directly on their grid; and, perhaps most annoyingly, I have to go to a link in bio to get celebrity gossip from Page Six.
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At an event at Instagram last week, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, was asked why that annoying little bit of Instagram hasn't been changed and he said it was by design.
"You can't [post] links in-feed because it'll make Instagram about news," Mosseri said.
Meta allows clickable links on Threads and Facebook but, Mosseri argued, that adding links to grid posts on Instagram would move the app "meaningfully away from being a visual platform… and towards links and publishers and away from creators." This has been a steadfast opinion of Mosseri and Meta's Instagram team — Instagram is not for news. Hell, Threads, Instagram's X/Twitter competitor, isn't really for news.
During the event but not directly in response to the grid post link question, Mosseri said, "We want to empower creators in general. We try not to lean too hard into news. We’re not anti-news." News is always going to be on Instagram a bit because, well, human beings are on Instagram. "But having worked on Facebook for a long time and leaning in really hard there, we want to be really careful not to over-promise and under-deliver."
Adding those links in grid posts would "fundamentally" change Instagram. "Though I know it's annoying," he added.
Topics Apps & Software Instagram
Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.
Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.
