---
title: "Swipe up"
description: "Swipe up is an upward finger gesture, popular in Stories for opening a link. Learn how it works, the history of the Instagram feature and its marketing uses."
url: "https://nodea.io/en/glossary/swipe-up"
lang: "en"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

# Swipe up

> Swipe up is an upward finger gesture on a touchscreen, associated mainly with social media Stories, where it took the user to an external link.

**Swipe up** is a gesture performed on a touchscreen by sliding a finger from the bottom upward. In the context of marketing and social media, the term is associated above all with Stories, where swipe up took the user from a full-screen piece of content straight to a destination page. Beyond that, the gesture is one of the basic ways to navigate in mobile applications.

## What swipe up is

In its classic use on [Instagram](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/instagram), the swipe up feature let creators place a clickable link to an external page in their Stories. A viewer watching an [Instagram Story](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/instagram-story) could swipe upward to jump to a store, article or landing page without leaving the app. It was one of the few ways to drive traffic out of Stories, which made it an important sales and influencer-campaign tool.

- **Direct link from a Story** — it shortened the path from content to conversion;
- **Strong call to action** — an animated arrow and label encouraged the gesture;
- **Measurability** — the number of taps let creators judge how well content performed.

In 2021 Instagram replaced swipe up with a link sticker, which, unlike the old feature, any user can add regardless of follower count. The mechanism of directing people to a page remained; only the form of interaction changed.

## Practical application

The prompt to swipe up became, in marketing, a synonym for guiding the audience to the next step — whether realized by a gesture or a link sticker. Brands use it in product campaigns, time-limited promotions and creator collaborations, where a quick jump from a Story to an offer matters. An effective [call to action](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/call-to-action) in a Story combines engaging video with a clear message about what to do next.

Beyond social media, swipe up functions as a universal interaction pattern: it reveals a menu, expands additional content or moves to the next screen. When designing mobile interfaces, it is worth providing a clear visual cue that an element responds to an upward swipe, because not every user will discover a hidden gesture on their own.

### Does swipe up still work on Instagram?

Instagram retired the classic swipe up feature in Stories in 2021, replacing it with a link sticker that can be added regardless of follower count. The upward swipe gesture itself remains a common element of touch interfaces and mobile applications.

## Related

- [Instagram Story](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/instagram-story)
- [Instagram](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/instagram)
- [CTA (call to action)](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/call-to-action)
- [SMO](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/smo)
- [Influencer marketing](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/influencer-marketing)

---

Languages: [pl](https://nodea.pl/pl/slownik-pojec/swipe-up.md)  
Site index: [llms.txt](https://nodea.io/en/llms.txt)