Category: InstagramCategory: Instagram

Meta One, huh? The Meta subscription thing, where you pay a monthly fee. It’s not available for everyone yet, but some people are starting to see it: you have to pay Meta a monthly subscription to include links in your posts and in your reels. Supposedly they’re also starting to delink the links people put in comments. It’s only a matter of time before they come for the link in bio.

So what do we do? If you rely on Instagram, if you rely on Facebook, if all of that is the driver to the things that you do, if that’s the only way to get the word out, what do you do if you don’t want to pay $8 a month or $20 a month for two or four or five links?

The best time to have gotten away from these platforms was five years ago, three, two. The second best time is now.

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This was inevitable: Meta charging for links in a Facebook posts and Instagram Reels.

As Future of Media reports, “without paying for a subscription, pages could come up against a maximum of two Facebook links per month.”

And it seems they’re going after the “link in comments” trick, too.

“The new restrictions being tested include links in comments. Users included in the test have reported that once they hit the limit, their URLs appear as plain, non-clickable text.”

The best time to have left Instagram and Facebook was five years ago. The second best time is now.

(via Pixel Envy)

An artist asked me to look at their website (as part of my Website Resurrection offering), and I noted two things that always seem to come up.

1. Stop sending your fans to platforms where you can’t reach them. Think about it, that one click away from your site could have been a click deeper into your site, so remove (or at least deprioritize) your Instagram links.
   
2. When posting your upcoming events and award nominations on a platform where 90% of our followers won’t even see it, add those updates to your website, too!

Remember, it’s 2026 – not everyone’s on Instagram anymore. Make sure the people who were adventurous enough to seek you out can see what you’re up to.

I noted this comment from Sarah Jo Austin, which perfectly aligns with our Social Media Escape Club vibes:

“I wore myself out last year making IG reels out of my Substack content. I stopped in January, thinking I would go back, but the time and creative energy I’ve gotten back is worth not engaging in IG at all.”

Trying to convince people on one platform to follow you to another (and to fork over their email address) is hard work, and eventually you need to ask yourself if it’s worth the time and energy.

From a recent Email Guidance client:

Decided to go through my “General” IG mailbox and send a version of this note: [REDACTED]

Picked up two new free sub’s in the first five mins.

This writer reached out to people already in his DMs with a note saying they could subscribe to his newsletter, and two people did that just that in the first five minutes.

I’m not saying automated systems cheapen the exchange, but honest communication certainly can’t hurt.