Linktree is a way to bring together a series of links that you want to share with other people. In February this year, it marked the creation of a massive 10 million Linktrees, with at least one user in every country around the globe. Since then, it has signed up around three million more users, giving it a total of 12 million users. That’s relatively small compared with some social media platforms—Twitter, for example, has 192 million daily active users, and Facebook has over two billion. However, it’s still quite a lot, so what has Linktree got to offer, and should it be part of your web presence?
Linktree is a convenient service to assemble your digital footprints in one place
Many social media sites—and Instagram is particularly famous for this—only allow you to include a single link in your bio. This is fine if you want to link to your own website. However, for active users of social media, and those who produce and share content on several platforms, it is somewhat limiting. Linktree allows you to create a single site that brings together all your links in one place, to use as your main link, and make your content more findable.
Linktree also allows you to share content on a specific subject
Linktree is not just for bios or social media. You can also use it as a way to bring together links on a specific topic for your interest, or for your followers. For example, activists are using it to provide resources that people can use to campaign on particular subjects, or a list of petitions that they feel strongly about. Content creators can also use it as a curation tool for resources that their followers might find interesting, or simply as a way to gather resources for their own use.
You can have several Linktrees, to bring together links in different areas
One of the joys of Linktree is that you can bring things together—but also keep them apart. Consider social media star Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella. She has (at least) two Linktrees, one as Zoe Sugg, and one as Zoella. The content is similar, but the branding is quite different, as is the ordering of links. She is, in other words, setting out to create two linked but different brands. Linktree allows her to do this in a way that would be more difficult via her own website.
Linktree has a paid-for (pro) offering, but the free version is likely to be enough for most people
The free Linktree offering provides a page on which you can include unlimited links. You can also customise that page using one of several built-in themes, and embed video content. You can even use some site analytics to track views and clicks generated by your Linktree. Other options include the use of icons and social media badges, which is a relatively new feature. The Pro version costs $6 per month. It provides more options for customisation, and more advanced analytics. It also has some new functions such as link leaping and priority links, and allows users to collect emails and payment from their customers.
Linktree currently takes a strong ethical stance
One of the promises on Linktree’s home page is that ‘privacy is non-negotiable’. It goes on to state that it does not track personal data on site visitors. A recent blog by one of the founders also confirms the company’s strong ethical stance, and the founders’ desire to ‘leave the internet better than we found it’. However, only time will tell if the co-founders are able to hold to this following the recent input of $45 million in venture capital funding and new company directors.
Linktree serves a purpose, but it won’t suit everyone
It is important to stress that Linktree is not the answer to everything. Its ideal user is probably a user of several different social media and content platforms, who does not have their own website (or whose website is simply a marker). In other words, it is perfect if you don’t have a single priority link to use in social media bios. Anyone whose main platform is their own website is likely to want to include that as their main link on social media. This will be a better way of staying in control, driving traffic to your own site, with consequent SEO advantages, and preventing any unforeseen ‘outages’.