Borrow or buy? Your own Linktree
Platforms
Platforms are a curse and a blessing for the digital, creative producer. They have a large audience and to reach it you put yourself at their service. You are actually maintaining a rented house. So, I choose a golden mean where I start with someone else's product, to get going quickly, and then later bring it to myself. An example is Linktree. If you're active on Instagram, you've probably had to deal with it.
Why use a Linktree?
It's a small but important cog in the machine and requires some explanation. It is a supplement mainly on Instagram and has never become a genre with a more general name. Call it a launchpad. It is a simply designed web page with the essential links to your website, web pages and social media. All indispensable or current pages accessible via a single address. Extra significant for Instagram because there you only have one reference for all your posts. The link is here:
One obstacle to the flow of traffic is therefore this profile page. You do a post on Instagram and in the post you invite people to view a product. For example, an online course. It is impossible to include a reference to a web page there, unpaid. What you can do then is call on the interested reader to click on the link in the bio of the profile. And so that you don't have to adjust this link all the time, or you want to make multiple adjustments, you can also create a dedicated page with only references and link it.
Manage this linking page yourself
Eventually, there are disadvantages to an external service, and it is important to be and remain independent. It is an essential step for every producer to consider eventually where you want to remain your own boss. There are limitations to free products in particular.
The three biggest advantages of taking the linktree page into your management are:
- Better for SEO
- Control over your brand and domain
- Adding tracking tags
It is better to create your own list of links and place it on a domain of your own. That's precisely what I did last week. One on stand-alone domain and one on a subdomain. If you like it, below I shared my way of working.
"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best time is now."
Better buy than borrow
In short: Linktree is a nice, quick way to link Instagram to your other online assets. But, if you are a producer who wants to make serious use of social media traffic and use these channels for good brand recognition, more followers, more traffic, make sure you have your page. The idea of putting the most recent and indispensable links there is a great starting point and also very useful for Twitter profile. It's a key page, so it's better to buy it than borrow it eventually.
