What happened to Instagram Stories Swipe-ups?
We’ve all been working hard for that magic 10,000 follower mark to get access to that most envied feature of all on Instagram. The Instagram Story swipe-up. Now it’s gone.
So where have Instagram stories swipe-up actions gone?
Don’t panic too much, while the Instagram Stories swipe-up action on Stories has gone to the grave, it lives on with link stickers. For a while now, Instagram has been offering link stickers as an extra way to create a more flexible call to action than the boring swipe-up action. Now the free world’s second-largest social platform has removed the action and is just allowing users to put their links in stickers.
However, the limitation that only those with 10,000 followers or more can access the Instagram Story link stickers call to action continues, at least for now. But Instagram has conceded that they are considering releasing this feature to all users at some point. This would remove the tendency for business profiles to buy fake followers to get over the 10,000 mark just to get the option to add a link to their Stories.
Honestly, though, links in Stories are not what I’m after. I’d prefer to see the ability to add a link in feed posts on Instagram. This constant “link in bio” mess that has created the need for third-party systems like Linktree to help you sort out how to link to multiple locations, articles, and other social networks, has been a bane in the social media posting process for business since Instagram began. And while the inability to do it has been a differentiator for the platform over Facebook and other networks, it still annoys me.
If you did have the ability to add link stickers in your Instagram, Stories, as I’m sure most of you don’t, then what kind of links could be useful?
Landing pages are the most obvious ones. I, for one, am a lover of the landing page. I don’t need Clickfunnels or Lead Pages to make them as I can just add them as content to my websites. While many don’t like doing this as it may mess with the things that they do and don’t want indexing in Google, I don’t mind my landing pages coming up in Google. In fact, that’s what they are largely for, at least in my case.
Having the ability to link to an article on a website, a longer video on YouTube or even to a view in an app means that you can continue the customer journey along a more predictable path, rather than hoping that your brand messaging and posts are on-point all the time.
Another way that links in Instagram Stories could be useful is, that by adding UTM markers at the end of your link, you could better attribute traffic and purchases to a specific channel, specific campaign, or specific post or story. This is useful if you’re really trying to separate out the traffic that is coming simply from the link in your bio from traffic that you designed especially for stories and feed posts. It’s a small thing, but an important one when you’re reporting on your marketing activities for clients and corporate customers.
While the Instagram stories swipe-up is gone and we have a fairly clunky replacement, we can at least wish for something better. Naturally, wishes are no guarantee of getting what you want from a major online platform, but surely there can’t be any harm in putting it out there, right?
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https://audioboom.com/posts/7975192
Dante St James is the founder of Clickstarter, a Facebook Blueprint Certified Lead Trainer, a Community Trainer with Facebook Australia, a digital advisor with Treeti Business Consulting, an accredited Digital Solutions advisor and presenter, and the editor at The Small Marketer. You can watch free 1-hour webinars and grow your digital skills at Dante’s YouTube Channel.
