How To Add Swipe Up to your Instagram Story

Creating a story on Instagram is a fun new approach to interacting with your followers. It is especially important for business accounts.

Instagram stories feel authentic, personal, and immediate. Since they disappear after 24 hours, there is no need to stress about making everything perfect. The charm of Instagram stories is that they are spontaneous and you should not overthink them.

Your stories appear on your profile, but they also appear on your followers’ feeds and next to the stories that you share. It is not surprising that some users add a great deal of information to their stories. A clever caption or sticker can leave a great impression. But what about links?

Linking from Your Instagram Story

Instagram is famous for limiting your options well known for limiting users’ options involving adding links.

You can add a link to your profile. If you want to inspire people to visit your site, you can add a caption to your story with instructions to check your profile for more information.

But what about direct links on your story? Is it possible for your followers to tap on the story and reach a different webpage? Instagram introduced the swipe-up option for users who want to add outgoing links to stories. When you see a story with the caption See More, you should swipe up to reach a new website.

What You Need to Know About Swipe Up

When this option was first released, it was restricted to verified accounts. These users generally used swipe-up to link to promotions, or to concert schedules and other topical information. Some celebrities also used Instagram stories to link to their preferred causes and spread awareness.

But what about the rest of us?

Instagram took a very careful approach to expand the swipe-up function. This function is easy to abuse and it could put Instagram users at risk of reaching malware sites. So at this point, the swipe-up option is available to business accounts or accounts with 10,000+ followers.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Swipe-Up

Here is how business accounts can add outgoing links to stories:

1. Create your Story First. To create a story, you can take a picture or video. You can also upload media from your gallery or use Boomerang to record a live event.
   
   
   
2. When your story is complete, you can edit it in various ways. If your account qualifies for swipe-up, there will be a share link icon at the top of the screen. Look for a chain link icon in the middle of the screen, next to the usual editing options.
   
   
   
3. Tap on Share Link. When you select this option, you can simply paste the URL. You can not link to multiple websites from one story.
   
   
   
4. Add a Caption. When your story is done, Instagram will add a discreet arrow and the caption “See More”. This is at the bottom of your page and it is easy to miss. It is very important to add an appropriate label to inspire your followers to swipe up. Something like “Swipe up for more information!” will work.
   
   

Give accurate but brief information about where the link leads. You can use a call to action, some other examples are:

• Summer Sale! Swipe up for more information
• Swipe up to order!
• My business hours this week – swipe up

Drawing an upward arrow can get the point across too. Remember that Instagram stories feel personal and unofficial, so you can also add a joke or pun that fits your brand and the image in question.

You can also simply draw attention to the See More option on the bottom of the page by adding stickers or doodles.

The Workaround for Smaller Accounts

Users who do not have more than 10,000 followers can take advantage of Instagram’s IGTV to get the swipe up feature. You will still need a business account to do this, however.

If you are not already familiar with IGTV it is Instagram’s version of television. Designed for uploading videos, this will give you the Share Link option we mentioned above.

1. Visit your profile and click on the search icon at the bottom.
   
   
   
2. Click IGTV link on top.
   
   
   
3. Click Add on the top left and add the video content.
   
   
   
4. Click on the share link, add a URL, and a caption. Once your video posts, the Swipe Up option should appear for your viewers and followers.
   
   

Why Is This a Useful Option for Businesses?

Stories are becoming popular among all types of businesses that advertise on Instagram. According to Instagram’s internal data from August 2017, over half of all business accounts shared at least one story with their followers in the month.

People enjoy interacting with brands and businesses on their own terms. Offering a swipe-up option is a good way to gain hits on your own website. It also gives people information immediately, without any awkwardness. Impulse purchases are easier with swipe-up too.

Changing to a Business Account

If you are trying to grow your Instagram followers and become an influencer, or you have opened your own business, you can change your current account to a business account:

1. Visit your Settings and tap on “Switch to a Professional Account.”
   
   
   
2. Tap “Continue” through the next screens.
   
   
   
3. Choose a category for you professional account.
   
   
   
4. You will be asked if you are a “Creator” or a “Business.”
   
   
   
5. Instagram will then walk you through a few simple steps to familiarize you with professional tools available.
   
   
   

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Swipe Up feature?

Whether you’re an influencer or using the platform for marketing, the Swipe Up feature makes it seamless for your viewers to navigate to a website. Once you’ve hit 10,000 followers the feature will appear.

This link helps you drive engagement to your website or even another platform. Once there, viewers can shop for your products, learn more about your services, or anything else.

Do I need to get verified to add a link to my Story?

Although you can’t add a link directly to your Story, you can add it to your Instagram Bio regardless of your current verified status. Once done, you can add ‘Link in Bio’ to your Story using the text function.

Wrapping Up

Do you have any tips, tricks, or questions related to enabling the swipe up function on Instagram? Please let us know in the comment section below.