Stop Using Link In Bio

‘Stop using link in bio’ ‘Link in bio is out of date’ ‘you should be using comment to DM’ automation’

How many of these little phrases have you heard recently? They are plastered all over my Instagram at the moment and they raise a valid point, ‘link in bio’ is outdated and there is a better way. However, their better way involves paying out. So let’s chat about my workaround and see if you can get better results without another paid subscription.

Let's dive in with the problems with ‘link in bio’.

When you say ‘link in bio’ you are encouraging people who are reading your post to navigate away from that post and to your profile page (click one), then to click the link at the top of your bio (click two), then navigate the page they land on to find the piece they were interested in (click three) then they can look at it more in-depth. Or, more likely they got bored and gave up. 

We have become fickle creatures, three clicks and some scrolling are too much to keep our fragile attention.

Also, the idea of using an additional third-party web page to host your links has always seemed counterintuitive to me, but that personal annoyance can be covered later.

So, what is the alternative? Its comment to DM automation

Comment to DM automation is simple, you get us a little bot that looks through your comments and when someone uses the correct keyword the little bot brings them a DM (direct message in case you weren’t sure) from your account that says, thanks for your interest here is the link you’re interested in.

The benefits of doing this are it’s quick, a single click to exactly what you wanted, its personalised because it's from the business directly to you with the information you want and its easy, just type the word they give you and boom done. It also gives you comments on your post (algorithm likes engagement) all of which you can reply to doubling your engagement (algorithm happy) which in turn shows it to more people and people staying on Instagram longer (algorithm really likes) so most reach, and more views. 

So where does the problem lie? Bots aren’t free, even the free ones aren’t free. You get so many free and then they stop until you cough off. Influencers pushing these bots normally have an affiliation to these companies meaning they get a cut or freebies so of course they are going to push them, they are making money off the boots you spend money on. There are low-cost ones, and if you aren’t getting huge engagement then the cost is probably very low and if it’s done and you don’t have to worry about it, then the cost may well be worth it.

The workaround

I am a new start-up micro business, and every penny counts if I’m going to build my little web into a tirantulan castle. So I made a workaround, it’s free and takes very little effort.

I have a Google sheet (love a spreadsheet) where I keep my plans for articles, my posting schedules, hashtag research etc so I always have this doc open when I am writing my social posts. One of the sheets on this spreadsheet is a sentence generator, so in row one I put the article name, in row two the link, and in row three the comment word. The formula then populates row four with the sentence for my post,
“Visit my WEBsite to read the article, or comment LINK and I'll DM you the link 🔗🕸️”

and row five with my DM message
"So you're interested in Stop Using Link In Bio? Well, here it is 👉 https://www.socialspider.co.uk/free-resources/stop-using-link-in-bio

There are loads of other useful articles available on my WEBsite, so I hope you find them helpful too 🕸️

And, if you think you could use a helping hand with your marketing, I've got eight 🕷️ so get in touch and let's see what we can achieve together. "

I then send that message from my Social Spider Instagram to my personal Instagram, meaning when I get a comment on any of my posts I just look through my Social Spider DMs, find the relevant message, copy it and send it to the person who has commented.

And there you have it, a simple easy way to give you professional comment to DM messages, without the bot expenses. Do you think you will try this workaround?

Okay, I hear you, you want a copy of my spreadsheet so you can use the formula template and customise it for your own business. It’s yours and it’s free. Just fill in the form below and I will email it out to you.

PS

Did you think I had forgotten about my little rant earlier? Afraid not. 

I have never understood why you would use a third-party link service for your bio link. The idea of sending your potential customers from a social media platform, to another platform where there is very little ‘you’ there because branding costs extra for the final link to be to your website, baffles me.

Add a separate landing page on your website, so it matches in and looks like the brand you have worked so hard on. It’s also then on your site, you can see which links people are clicking, customise them, track them and potentially (cookieless future depending) even re-target them!

Wherever you can get people to your site so you can get the benefits, not a third-party platform.