Instagram is about to make a change that will see the popular photo and short video platform do away with the swipe up feature in stories. Instead you'll start seeing tappable link stickers that will redirect users to external websites.

The changes will come into effect on 30th August, 2021. The company explained its decision to swap swipe ups to stickers in order to “streamline the stories creation experience” and offer more “creative control” due to the fact account holders can actually format the stickers to their liking, as opposed to having to choose from one of the existing swipe up GIFSs.

According to a report TechCrunch, the sticker feature was first tested in June with just a handful of users but will roll out more broadly come the end of August.

Until now, verified users or those with more than 10,000 followers could add the swipe up link to their stories in order to take viewers to a separate website in order to read an article, shop a product, download a song or anything else the account holder was promoting. These same users will now be the ones with access to the stickers feature but there are also reports that the change will apply to everyone.

The TechCrunch report also notes that, in addition to creative control, there are other benefits of the new rollout included means that creators will be able to toggle between different styles, resize the sticker, and place it anywhere on the story for maximum engagement — much like you can with polls, questions and geotags.

Viewers will now also be able to react and reply to posts that have the Link Sticker attached, just like any other story — an option that wasn’t available on posts with the swipe-up link.

Instagram has said that its considering whether to grant Link Sticker access to more accounts in the future — which could help budding influencers grow their business quickly and allow journalists with less than 10,000 followers an easier way to share their work.