Why You Should Stop Using LinkTree in Your Instagram Bio
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Public Service Announcement: Stop using Linktree in your Instagram bio (or Milkshake, Beacons, Carrd, Campsite, etc.)
What is Linktree?
Instagram limits your profile bio to just a single link, and hyperlinks do not work in Instagram captions. Linktree is a tool to help Instagram account holders share more than one URL in their Instagram bio. Linktree, along with similar tools, provides an easy way to add a link in your Instagram bio that will lead to a landing page. This landing page can contain multiple different links that you would like to send your audience to. This might be your blog, your product, a service or a special promotion.
Linktree is very simple to set up, and is used by over 25 million people. It makes it easy to update and share your content with your Instagram followers.
Seems like a great idea, right?
Not really.
Let’s talk about how to drive traffic to Instagram...
As a business owner with an Instagram account, you may have a strategy in place to grow your brand awareness, make connections, and engage with your audience on the platform. But, your end goal is most likely to get that audience to take some sort of action off of Instagram. That may be to purchase your products, read your blog, subscribe to your email list, join a program, or sign up for your services.
When you direct them to your Linktree link in your bio, you are sending them to someone else’s website! Yes, your links are there, but then the user has to click on one of those links, which may or may not lead them to your website. You are cluttering up the customer journey, and giving them more opportunities to get lost or distracted along the way.
You have worked so hard to build that audience on Instagram- why would you send all that traffic based on your hard work to somewhere else?
Branding + Cohesive Customer Experience
The branding options on Linktree are quite limited, and on the free plan, your Linktree page will include their logo. Have you put in a lot of effort to craft your Instagram aesthetic? Is your website beautifully designed and branded to attract your ideal customer? Sending them to your bright green Linktree page with someone else’s logo can put a screeching halt on the customer journey. Your client experience is no longer easy and cohesive. Not only are you interrupting the branding and aesthetic, but you may lose some trust or authority with your your potential lead as well.
What can I use instead of Linktree?
Your own website! (Most of the time.)
Consider; what action do you really want your Instagram audience to take? Where do you really want them to go? Probably straight to your website where they will have the opportunity to explore your site, learn what you are about, and take their next step in your customer journey.
Alternatively, create an additional page on your website to house the various links that lived in your Linktree. You can call it YourWebsite.com/InstagramLinks or YourWebsite.com/Links, or something like that. This way, your beautiful branding can carry through, and you can still send your audience to the links you mention in your Instagram content. Plus -your website is capturing that valuable traffic. Each time someone clicks from Instagram to your website, it signals to Google that your content is relevant. This helps build domain authority which helps with your ranking. And everyone wants to rank high on Google, right!?
Are you launching a new offer, hosting an event, or starting a waitlist? Is this the only thing your Instagram content will be about? Maybe that is the only place you want to send your traffic to. In those cases, it’s ok to have YourWebsite.com/salespage as your link in bio instead. Just make sure that when that waitlist is closed or that event is over, that you update your Instagram profile link.
The Linktree alternative that we use at Mama Hen Media
The link in our Instagram bio is MamaHenMedia.com/links.
This will take you to a page hosted on our website. You can choose to join our email list, read our blog, explore our website, or click on one of the links that we have listed.
We opted to do this because while we wanted to capture that traffic from Instagram to our website, we still wanted to make it easy for our audience to find certain links that we refer to in our Instagram content. This includes a simple way to find the service and free resource that we are currently promoting, our Amazon storefront, and a link to donate to the charity that we partner with, Girls on the Run.
Let’s say we post content on Instagram about a recommended item that can be purchased on Amazon, we might use the call to action, “Head to the link in my bio to get your own.” When you go to the link in our bio, MamaHenMedia.com/links, our website gets that traffic first. Then you can head to our Amazon favorites from there. Or maybe, because you see other options, you decide to explore our services or join our email list. Those actions are even more valuable to us as a business, because now we have the opportunity to nurture our relationship and sell you our services.
Now let’s imagine the same scenario, but in this case, we have a Linktree link in our bio.
We post that same content about an item we recommend on Amazon, with the call to action to head to the link in our bio. In this case, you go to the Linktree link, which takes you to a jarring, off-brand, bright green page. You click on the Amazon link, decide whether or not to add to cart, and then go on your way. In this scenario, you have not visited our website, you have not enjoyed our beautiful branding or connected with us in a way that allows us to nurture our relationship with you.
The only instance that I truly recommend using Linktree is if you do not have your own website. But if you are a business owner on Instagram, then you should have a website anyways. While I am not a website designer, I have several excellent ones in my community that I would be happy to refer you to. #womensupportingwomen
If you need help with a content marketing strategy that drives real results for you, we would love to help you nurture your audience. Visit our services page to explore the ways we can work together.
