Instagram to allow hashtags, profile links in user bios

Instagram is following in Twitter's footsteps today. You can finally put hashtags and profile links in your Instagram bio. (Yeah, you couldn't do that before, in case you didn't notice.)

Now when you type an @ sign or a hashtag followed by text in your bio, it'll appear as a live link on your profile. By clicking them, visitors can get to other profiles, or see other posts with the same hashtag.

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When you mention someone else in your profile, they'll receive a notification, and can choose to remove the link from your profile.

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It's a way to "make your profile the home for the things that matter most to you," according to the company's blog post.

You've been able to put hashtags and links in Twitter bios since around summer 2016. Notably, you can't put hashtags or links to other profiles in your Facebook bio, but Instagram has shown more focus on discovery through hashtags in recent months. In December, the app began allowing users to follow hashtags in the same way they do profiles.

The hashtag began as a textual reflection of ephemeral web trends, but as yet another social network seeks to entrench it more permanently in user bios and feeds, that era seems to be drawing to a close. The hashtag is slowly but surely becoming a tool for connecting people -- not necessarily to trends that change, but to passions that remain the same.

As our reporter Kerry Flynn put it, this move is the next step towards the hashtag's rebirth as "a spark for our passions, in love and in war."

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