The “Link in Bio” Method
Links are an important part of social media. Depending on what platform you're using, they can be extremely valuable for gaining traction on your call to action. This is especially true for Instagram because links are not active links on posts or stories (except for verified accounts). An active link is a link that is directly clickable or “click and go”. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, where you can share a link and users can be instantly transported to a product page, blog post or service listing, you can’t do that easily with Instagram.
There are several ways around linking and today’s blog post focuses on my favorite method. I call this method the “link in bio” approach which directs post traffic to your bio link. If you’ve ever seen my Instagram @westsacmonica, I drive traffic from my post to my profile with the phrase “link in bio” along with the link itself. This allows users a shortcut in case my audience does not feel like typing the website URL in their browser. Many users do not like having to work too hard to find information so make it easy for them! The landing link on my profile is my blog main page, since all social media content, at this time, is related to my blog. If you find yourself with multiple pages that you’re sending your audience to then you may benefit from a multi-link service like Linktree. This allows an account to host multiple captioned links. Linktree also provides general analytics like the number of clicks under the free account. You can host multiple links and drive traffic from your bio link to your Linktree. There are alternatives to Linktree, such as Flow and Later, if you’d like to try something stylized differently. Linktree is more of a list, where Later’s link sharing platform shows actual photo layouts similar to your feed.
When it comes to Story posts, you can share shorted links created in TinyURL or Bitly instead of posting the real long URL. Just make sure you share you do not share the link in one of the all caps font options because the links from Bitly are case sensitive. Additionally, you can also share a “link in bio” Giphy on your Story post to drive traffic to your bio. Alternatively, you can let users know they can direct message you for a link since Instagram’s messenger allows for active link sharing! Just make sure you’re prepared to handle the volume of messages and be mindful that some users don’t want to wait for you to respond. Therefore, I typically go for the “link in bio” approach in my Story posts as well.
Make sure you pay extra attention to your linking because quite often it’s the only thing standing between your audience and your call to action. Think smarter, not harder by making it easy for your followers. Happy posting!
