Linked content has been an impactful way for influencers and content creators to make a living on social media platforms. This can be seen through brand partnerships or affiliate partnerships. But recently, social media platforms have engineered themselves to hide content with links posted in them, keeping their users’ attention solely on their platforms. Some social media platforms, like TikTok and Instagram, have even gone so far as to create their own in-app shopping feature to prevent users from leaving the platform to shop elsewhere. 

Before listening to the Buffer podcast, I would have said it is smart and useful for social media content creators to attach links to their posts in order to hit required or necessary benchmarks for their campaigns, but since listening to the podcast and learning that links are often hidden by social media platforms or not pushed into the algorithm the same way link free posts are, I would say there is serious consideration that needs to be taken into account regarding best practices for linked content. The Buffer podcast also mentioned redirecting followers to your profile bio for links to products or services you’re promoting, but social media platforms are catching on to that strategy as well, and some platforms are requiring a certain number of followers to even post links in bios or profiles. 

I think the solution to these issues may end up being some sort of additional tax taken out of the affiliate link and given to the platform. This is the only way I could see keeping social platforms from further evolving, and even blocking content with links that drive users away from their sites, as a substitute for the loss of engagement on those sites. The tax could be a small percentage of the sale from the link, but it would allow content creators to post content as they would like and not experience a loss of engagement, thus a loss of revenue and ROI for the brands they partner with.