Instagram has formally announced the end of the “swipe-up” functionality on the app, and will instead allow users to use link stickers, which are tappable stickers in stories that take people to external websites.
It’s out with the old and in with the new for Instagram users starting the 30th of August, as swipe-up links will no longer be available. The reason? “To streamline the stories creation experience and offer more creative control, given that users can format the look of stickers and not the swipe up.
Source: Bullfrag
As it stands, this new link sticker had been in testing starting in June with a small handful of users, the company said. It was first spotted by app researcher, Jane Manchun Wong who tweeted on Monday, “IG said the swipe up links will go away starting from Aug 30 and that I should use the “link sticker”… but I searched my Stories Sticker sheet and I’m not seeing the link sticker at all (not rolled out to me). Does that mean I’ll lose the ability to add links to my Stories?”
According to Instagram, like polls, questions, and location stickers, the Link Sticker lets creators toggle between different styles, resize the sticker, and then place it anywhere on the Story for maximum engagement. In addition, viewers will now be able to react and reply to posts that have the Link Sticker attached, just like any other Story.
Instagram says that for now, only people who had swipe-up privileges will receive the sticker option, but that it’s “still evaluating” rolling it out to more users. Swipe-up privileges are only given to users who have more than 10,000 followers.
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