As photographers, a lot of us tend to gravitate to Instagram as our platform of choice for marketing our business on social media.  It’ makes sense, its primarily an image-focused platform, and lucky us we are in the business of producing images.  I like to think of Instagram as a little city. There are so many amazing features that make up different neighborhoods on Instagram. 

Instagram Neighborhood

You have your basic feed neighborhood, your Instagram stories neighborhood, your IG TV neighborhood, the train station called hashtags, that takes you to different parts of the city, the new development of reels, then there is your own home, your profile.  It’s a beautiful little community.  It’s a beautiful and wonderful spot to build your like know trust factor like we broke down back in episode 33.  Where we chatted all about the 5 secrets to consistently and strategically creating a plan for showing up and marketing on social media without feeling salesy. 

However there is one downfall of this tight-knit community, Instagram doesn’t want users to leave the platform.  They make money from more users seeing more adds, so when we ask users to leave the platform its a big deal.  In fact, Instagram only gives us one link on the entire platform to easily direct followers away from Instagram. Eventually, if and when you hit the 10K mark you are granted the ability to add swipe up on IG stories. So this one link we have access to holds a lot of power.  In the past couple of years, sites like linktree and linkinbio from later.com have gained a lot of popularity.  While they are easy to add links to on the go, I don’t think they are the best choice.  Today we will be breaking down why they aren’t the best choice and what you should use instead to help provide an on-brand experience for your followers, oh and it probably won’t cost you anything! 

Third-Party Apps

If you’re not familiar with sites like linktree they basically help you to build a single page site where you can add links to your different offers.  These links could be things links your email newsletter, most popular blog posts, or where clients can go to find out more about booking you. While these are handy little sites they aren’t the best solution.  My challenge to you is to create your own links landing page on your personal website.  Linktree offers very basic color options on their free plan it includes linktree branding on the bottom of the page. To upgrade to more color options and remove their logo at the bottom you have to pay $6 dollars a month. Over time that adds up. Over the course of 5 years that’s $360 When you choose to create your own links landing page you are able to save that money since you are already paying for your site, this is just an additional page dedicated to the links you are driving your Instagram traffic to. 

Cost Analysis

So besides the cost, what are the other benefits of using your own site? First off you are able to control the user experience, you control the colors the images, and all the branding. This helps to ensure your customers know they are in the right spot because it looks right! You have complete control over the aesthetic, which gives you the power to elevate your brand. 

Boost your SEO

When you push followers to your own site you also are boosting your SEO search engine optimization. Google sees that people are visiting, and clicking around on your site which helps to move you up in the google ranking. Why would we send someone to a third party site like linktree, when the goal is to get them onto our site!  

How to Create Your own Instagram Landing Page

So how do you do create an Instagram landing page?  Basically, you want to create a new page on your site with those links, this can be super simple or more in-depth.  If you go to chelsyweisz.com/instagram-links you will see mine is broken down into the categories: brides photographer and podcast.  These are the three people I talk to on social media.  In my bride’s section, I have links to some of my favorite weddings, as well as articles that I’ve written to help brides with their wedding planning.  

The podcast episode has links to my most downloaded episodes, as well as a link to the most recent episode.  

I also have a separate link for photographers where I have linked articles I’ve written that aren’t actually podcast episodes.  Things like gear reviews, video walk-throughs, and things like that.  

Even though having a custom webpage for Instagram isn’t required, it makes sense from a financial standpoint, as well as when it comes to branding and user experience. If the goal is to get someone to our site, then let’s skip the middle man and send them directly to our site using the link in our bio! 

Let’s Connect!

 If we aren’t already Instagram friends I’d love to connect!  Head to @chelsyweisz and comment on my most recent post let me know you just tuned into episode 34, and I’ll share some love on your feed! You can also follow @wisephotographerpodcast