0:09

Here is a question that puzzles most

0:11

social media users. Why

0:14

do some of my posts get

0:16

more views than others.

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Why does some posts get higher reach?

0:21

Why does some get more engagement? Why

0:23

does some get better impressions? It's

0:25

a really difficult question to answer.

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Each social network has a different

0:30

algorithm. Each algorithm promotes

0:33

and demotes posts in their own

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unique way. Learning why

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some posts go viral whilst others

0:40

don't is nylon impossible. However,

0:43

there was one thing that I started

0:45

to notice with my posts.

0:48

It seemed that most

0:50

of the posts with links got

0:52

less engagement and fewer

0:55

views. This was

0:57

just an anecdotal feeling nothing

0:59

more than that, but I wanted to test

1:01

my hunch. So I've spent the last

1:04

few months researching. In this episode,

1:06

I'll walk you through all our research

1:09

and I'll determine if you should

1:11

stop using links in your social

1:13

media post Welcome

1:21

to the science of social media. A podcast

1:23

by buffer. I'm your host for LAGNY.

1:26

And in today's episode, we are gonna explore

1:28

a topic that puzzles most social

1:30

media users. Why do

1:33

some of my post get more

1:35

views than others? As

1:37

I mentioned, this is a really difficult question

1:39

to answer. Each social media algorithm

1:42

is different and learning exactly

1:44

how each algorithm works is gonna be really

1:46

really difficult. But there

1:48

was something I tended to notice when

1:50

I would put a link in my post and that might

1:52

be a link to a website, a blog

1:55

post, podcast, a piece of content,

1:57

even links which are really really relevant, it

2:00

seemed like that post tended to

2:02

perform worse. However, when I removed

2:04

links, when I just had images or

2:06

or just pure text, those

2:09

posts tended to get better reach

2:11

get more engagement and so on. I wasn't sure

2:13

if it was the link that was causing less engagement

2:15

or if maybe perhaps the

2:18

algorithm was down

2:20

voting or throttling my post

2:23

because it contained a link. Now,

2:25

sort of anecdotally, this seems to make sense.

2:27

These. Social networks don't

2:30

want us to leave. They want to keep users

2:32

on the platform. So it would make sense

2:35

that they limit the reach of

2:37

posts with links that will take you

2:39

away. But this

2:41

is just a thought. It's just

2:43

a feeling. So I decided

2:46

to do some research. I conducted a

2:48

mix of third party and

2:51

first party research. All of my

2:53

third party analysis is based on some

2:55

great research conducted by others,

2:57

which we have linked to in the show notes.

2:59

And for the first party research, the research

3:01

we conducted ourselves, I used

3:03

brown watch, a consumer intelligence platform.

3:06

Specifically, I analyzed hundred

3:09

and seventy four million tweets,

3:12

which either contained link

3:14

or didn't contain a link.

3:16

So we specifically chose to look at tweets

3:19

because they are publicly available very easy to

3:21

get access to. And then we decided to

3:23

look at tweets that contain a link and then some

3:25

that didn't. I then looked at

3:27

the engagement and reach for

3:29

each of those tweets. So on

3:31

average, does a tweet with a link

3:33

get more retweets or

3:35

less? Does it get more views or less? Does

3:37

it get more reach or less? And

3:40

here's what we found. Tweets with

3:42

a link achieved seven point

3:44

two percent fewer re tweets and

3:46

tweets were about. Again, this is on average on a

3:49

massive data set, but that's a big difference

3:51

seven percent. We also found that tweets

3:53

with a link garnered twenty eight

3:55

percent less reach. So

3:58

much much less reach. Again, we can't be

4:00

hundred percent certain if this is down to just

4:02

tweaks with links being simply less engaging

4:04

for some reason. Or if they are being sort

4:06

of limited by the social media algorithms

4:08

themselves. We've also found that

4:10

LinkedIn impressions decrease by

4:13

three times when you post a link

4:15

We found that the engagement rate for LinkedIn

4:18

posts without a link is seventy

4:20

percent higher. And of course, we

4:22

know that Instagram and TikTok actively

4:25

discourage link sharing. For TikTok,

4:27

for example, you can't even have link in your bio

4:29

unless you achieve a certain number of followers.

4:32

We couldn't find any conclusive evidence on

4:35

other social networks like Facebook or Google

4:37

Business profiles, but we would assume

4:39

those algorithms act in a similar

4:41

way. So the headline appears to be

4:44

clear. Posts on social media

4:46

that contain a link seem

4:48

to perform worse. To dig a little

4:50

deeper, let's dive into our analysis.

4:52

Thanks to our friends over at Brown Watch. We

4:54

were able to analyze this this huge number

4:56

of tweets it was one hundred and seventy four

4:58

million five hundred and twenty five thousand

5:00

and hundred and thirty two to be

5:03

exact. And specifically, we looked at

5:05

a statistically accurate sample of tweets

5:07

published between July fifteenth twenty twenty

5:09

two to August sixteenth twenty

5:11

twenty two. And we were looking for

5:13

links that either contained a link or contained

5:16

a phrase which was link in

5:18

bio. Now the reason we decided to compare

5:20

the two is because both of these

5:22

tweets are attempting to do the same thing.

5:24

They are both trying to drive people

5:26

to external content. If you put a link,

5:29

you're trying to drive someone to that link. If you

5:31

say link in bio, you're trying

5:33

to do the same thing, but via your Lincoln

5:35

Bio. So via the bio, everyone

5:37

has a social media profile bio. And in your

5:39

bio, you can put a link. And to people who are saying

5:42

Lincoln Bio, basically trying to get

5:44

people to go to other content, but not putting it in

5:46

their link perhaps because they have the same assumption

5:48

that me that people won't click on a link

5:50

or that if you put a link in a post. It won't

5:52

get the engagement it needs. So we compared

5:54

these two styles of tweets, tweets that contain the

5:56

link, tweets that contain the phrase, link

5:58

and buyer. We compared the average number

6:00

of retweets, the number of impressions,

6:03

the average reach for both types

6:05

of tweets. I should note here

6:07

that impressions refers to the sum

6:09

of all of the followers of the authors

6:11

who tweeted or retweeted the post. That's

6:13

gonna be quite a big number and it can can be

6:15

far higher than it than actually the number of people

6:17

view it because you're just summing it up. While

6:20

reach is a number assigned to the

6:22

tweet, which attempts to estimate how

6:24

many users actually sort of post. So not just

6:26

adding up all the followers that a person has

6:28

and whoever retweeted it and their followers as

6:30

well. Here are the results that

6:32

we found. Number one,

6:35

tweets that refer to a Lincoln Buyer.

6:37

So tweets that say click my Lincoln Buyer, generate

6:40

eight point nine eight percent more

6:42

retweets than tweets that include

6:44

a link. Tweets that refer to a link

6:46

in bio generate twenty one point twenty

6:48

four percent more impressions than

6:50

tweets with a link. And

6:52

the link and buyer tweets generated forty

6:54

percent more reach than tweets.

6:57

With a link. So saying

6:59

Link and Bio rather than including a

7:01

link appears to improve the engagement

7:04

you'll get and the views you'll get

7:06

as well. Why is this? Well,

7:08

one hypothesis is that Twitter

7:10

and other social networks simply

7:12

just don't want people to leave the app. So

7:15

they limit the amount of visibility that

7:17

link based tweets get. However,

7:19

posts that refer to a link in bio

7:22

seem to circumvent this limitation. Without

7:24

an actual link in the post, the

7:27

post achieves maximum visibility and

7:29

gets more retweets because of it. It's

7:31

amazing to see the impact that including a

7:33

link can have on engagement and reach

7:36

of a post. And it's not just limited

7:38

to Twitter, as I mentioned earlier, LinkedIn

7:40

impressions can decrease by three times

7:42

when posting a link, and the engagement rate

7:44

for LinkedIn posts to eval to link is

7:47

seventy percent higher. Now,

7:49

this is a lot to take in. So social

7:51

media marketers out there. What is the key takeaway

7:53

from this research? Well, The

7:55

key takeaway is that if you want to

7:58

achieve maximum visibility and engagements

8:00

for your posts, you'll want to avoid

8:02

using links. But if you want to drive

8:04

people to external content, you're gonna have to put a link

8:06

somewhere. So it seems like

8:08

the best way to do it is to add that to your

8:10

link in bio. Which begs

8:13

the question. What is the best way

8:15

to set up a link and buy it? How can you

8:17

build a landing page that is perfect

8:20

for your social media account? Well,

8:22

you'll need a customizable tool which will fit

8:24

your brand. You'll need a tool which is able to

8:26

store lots of content and you'll need

8:29

a tool which can link your audience to the

8:31

right direct There are lots of tools

8:33

to do this, but the one I wanna talk about today

8:35

is buffer's own start page.

8:37

Buffer's start page is very customizable, friendly,

8:40

easy to use landing page. However,

8:43

there is one thing that sets Startpage

8:45

apart from the rest. Startpage

8:47

users can schedule new

8:50

posts to appear on their page

8:52

at a specific time and date

8:54

for free. Now this is unlike pretty much

8:56

every other Lincoln Bio tool on the market,

8:58

especially the ability to do it for free. And

9:01

it means you can schedule links, images, texts

9:03

to go live whenever you would like. You can

9:05

schedule content for both your social channels

9:07

and your start page simultaneously in

9:09

buffer. So for example, if you're gonna

9:11

post about a brand new event that you might

9:13

be running, you can make sure that your link

9:16

in bio gets that exact same information

9:18

when the post goes out. Meaning, you can tell

9:21

people to click on the Lincoln Bio and when they

9:23

do they'll see the exact information you

9:25

need on your Lincoln Bio. But there's

9:27

all sorts of information you can schedule for start

9:29

page. You can schedule information about your next event,

9:31

or ticket details about your latest gig,

9:33

release notes, about your last update,

9:36

discounts for your customers, updates

9:38

on product production, and, well, really

9:40

anything. Plus, all of your scheduled

9:42

start page updates can of course contain

9:44

links. So just

9:47

to recap, using link in your

9:49

post will decrease your visibility. You

9:51

should look to use a link in bio instead.

9:53

And if you're looking for one to try, why

9:55

not test out buffer start page? Listeners

9:58

of this podcast can get started today for

10:00

free by going to buffer dot com

10:02

forward slash start. That's

10:04

buffer dot com forward slash start

10:07

START and you

10:09

can set up your start page in just a couple

10:11

of minutes and try using a link in

10:13

bio today. So go to buffer dot com forward

10:15

slash start to get set up for free. Alright,

10:20

everyone. That is all from me today. I really hope

10:22

you found this episode of the Science of social media

10:24

useful. And if you enjoyed today's show,

10:27

please do leave us a review wherever you listen.

10:29

That really helps the show grow. We

10:31

love hearing from you, so if you do have any feedback

10:33

or if you wanna ask us any questions, Please

10:36

do reach out to us on social. We're on all the

10:38

channels you use just search for buffer.

10:40

Thank you so much for listening to today's

10:42

episode of the Science of Social Media

10:44

brought you by Buffalo.