Social media marketing can be an effective way to increase brand awareness. When you invest time on social media, you’re probably hoping to drive traffic to your site. It’s becoming increasingly common for social media platforms to penalize links in posts to try to prevent users to clicking away from their platform and going to another site. Some platforms make it impossible to include links in your post. Here’s the latest on social media platforms and where they stand on links.
On Instagram, links can’t be posted in captions, but they can be shared in Stories. That means there’s a good chance only your followers see them, so it’s difficult to expand your reach beyond your current audience on Instagram.
Most Facebook posts that appear in user feeds don’t include an external link. Even though Facebook hasn’t directly stated that they penalize link posts, these posts have become less common over time, which means less referral traffic.
Threads
Many marketers that use Threads believe it’s actively limiting the reach of link posts. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram and Threads has stated that they don’t suppress posts with links, but that these posts tend to get less engagement. He states that it’s user behavior that causes link posts to get less attention and reach.
Twitter, now known as X
The algorithm of X recommends posts based on how much time people spend on them. Not much time would be spent on a link post compared to video or text content. X does encourage people to share useful content on the app rather than directing people off the app, and it throttles links that attempt to send users to competing social media apps.
LinkedIn hasn’t stated that link posts aren’t allowed, but it reduces the preview size of link posts unless you pay to promote them. When you share a post with an external link on LinkedIn, the algorithm is likely to limit its reach.
TikTok
TikTok doesn’t have the capability to support links overall, so you can’t add them to your posts on this platform. There’s no evidence that TikTok penalizes links, but links can only be added to your profile, not to videos.
Snapchat
Links posted within promoted posts on this platform aren’t penalized, but there’s not much room for links on Snapchat in the first place. If you do add links, they’re likely to get limited engagement. Snapchat won’t let you link to other social media apps or to pages that won’t load on their platform
The bottom line is most platforms aren’t really open to links that take users off the platform, with one exception which is BlueSky, an alternative to Twitter. This platform states that they love the open web, and they’re open to links.
There’s a lot involved in creating a social media marketing strategy that works. It takes experience to determine the best platform to reach and engage with your target audience. The social media experts at Softline Solutions can help you target the right customers on the right platform so you can grow your business and your online presence. Get in touch with Softline Solutions today.
