Instagram Removes The Swipe Up Feature
From trickling out to specific profiles to now being more widely seen, Instagram has officially retired the swipe up feature.
Its replacement — now a sticker to tap — offers creators a little more customization. If you’ve got access to the link sticker, you’ll be able to tap it, change its background color and font color (though the selection is still quite limited), and you’ll also have the ability to resize it and move it around your screen; past that, it’s not really all that customizable.
If you’ve used the swipe up link before, you know it removed the ‘message’ bubble that appears on all other IG Stories, meaning your followers couldn’t react or respond to any IG Story that had the swipe up feature included. Now, though, with the new link sticker, the message bubble is back! While it doesn’t feel like a tremendous change, giving your audience the ability to interact/react/respond is always important, so it’s a great feature to now have available!
And, though rumors swirled that this new link sticker would be accessible to all, it seems that the sticker is still a privilege only granted to those with 10,000 followers or more. TBD if Instagram will roll out the link stickers to smaller and unverified profiles — though we’re certainly hoping it becomes more widely accessible as it’s such a high-value feature for brands and businesses!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on Instagram retiring the swipe up feature! From a creator and a user perspective, we want to know if you love it or hate it?
Maggie Peikon
Maggie is a Senior Content Creator and Editor at AMR Digital. When she’s not crafting content for clients, she can be found hiking with her pup, Finley, checking out Denver’s best vegan restaurants, and working on her garden. She’s currently planning her next SUP adventure and plotting how to become a goat mom.