Opinions on my link outreach strategy

I have two websites in the same niche. They both offer therapeutic massage/beauty services in London. One is over 10 years old with some excellent rankings and the other was launched in March 23 but is slowly starting to climb and has modest rankings. Both have active blogs. I want to get more backlinks, particularly for the newer site. My plan is to reach out to similar businesses and service providers in our industry on instagram and by email to offer them a link exchange. This is admin intensive of course but we have the capacity to do it. One big potential benefit for these sites is that the links technically aren't reciprocal. I have read that reciprocal linking isn't as powerful. We will offer a link from our stronger site in exchange for one back to our weaker site. We'll even provide them with the content. Is this a waste of time in 2025 or still worth doing? Thanks