Instagram is coming at us with yet another change this week, announcing that they will be removing the “swipe up” feature beginning on Monday, August 30th.  

The popular swipe up feature, available only to accounts with 10K or more followers, has historically allowed businesses and high-profile creators a way to direct their viewers to a website. 

The existing feature allows content creators the opportunity to direct their viewers to a website, by swiping up. For example, a nonprofit can swipe up to their donation page from a compelling story about why you should donate. Or, an influencer can direct users to swipe up to purchase the pair of shoes they are wearing in a story. 

Why the change?

Instagram, who started testing the stickers in June, announces that the new stickers functionality will have some key advantages over the existing swipe up link. For example: 

• Greater control over stories – the new sticker will allow creators to experiment with the sticker – placing it anywhere on the story, changing the color and size, etc. 
• Interact with posts that have stickers – currently, users are not able to comment or respond to stories that have a swipe up link. Once the stickers are activated, users will have the ability to react and reply to stories with stickers. 
• Potentially greater access – this is strictly hearsay, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Instagram opened up the stickers to more accounts, as opposed to just the ones with 10K followers. 

Honestly, we are never surprised by a shift in Instagram’s creative direction. And we expect to see more changes in the coming months and years. This one feels like a big change, but we expect content creators to adapt quickly, and move on. 

Are you a content creator? We would love to chat about your thoughts and give you some of our tips on the best ways to use this new feature to your advantage! Send us a message today. In the meantime, we are looking forward to watching this change and learning more! 

We posed this in our latest social media post – what do you think people will call this new feature? Swiping up is so widely used, “tap the sticker” doesn’t have the same ring. What do you think?