Instagram beefs up bios with hashtag and profile links

It seems that Instagram pushes a new feature out the door every few weeks, and lately, some of these new features have centered around hashtags and what you can do with them. Back in December, Instagram rolled out the ability to follow hashtag pages directly, ditching the need to search for them every time you wanted to see content associated with a particular one. Today, Instagram hashtags are receiving more functionality in a rather small update that could have a big effect on your user bio.

Beginning today, you can now add hashtags to your user bio, allowing you to be a little more up front with your interests. Of course, there was nothing stopping you from putting a few hashtags in your bio before, but now when you do it, they'll be automatically turned into live links that lead to their respective hashtag pages.

Beyond that new functionality, you can now also link to other profiles in your bio. For instance, if you have a friend or two you interact with frequently on Instagram, you can put a link to their profile in your own so every visitor knows that you two are best buds. In this way, it's a lot like what we see on Twitter, which also allows you to link to other profiles in your bio.

To add a hashtag or a profile link to your bio, you only need to type a "#" or an "@," which will pull up a list of recommended hashtags or accounts. Simply select the ones you want and Instagram will turn them into live links that lead to their respective hashtag pages or profiles.

The people you link to in your bio will receive a notification, after which they'll have the option of removing the link. If they choose to do so, your mention will still be there, but it won't offer a link to their profile. This new functionality should be live in Instagram now, so give it a spin for yourself and fill up your bio with links to your favorite hashtags and people.