Let me tell you a story about porn.
In 2009, we started a Social Media company. It was an exciting time in the world of Social Media and we were all learning.
One day we sent out a tweet but the link didn't get shortened. It just so happened that when someone clicked on that link, it took them directly to a porn site.
Too hear the full pain and fall out of this story, listen to the podcast.
This is why making sure that your links don’t get cut off is crucial.
Bit.ly is the tool that I use to to shorten my links for social media. However, I will even use it for shortening internal links, sometimes.
Bit.ly is free.
Now, if you use a service like Hootsuite, it has an easy to use link shortner built into it. If I am in a huge hurry, I will sometime use that but I really try to use Bit.ly as much as possible. Having all of my links shortened with one tool allows me to see a good overall sense of what people are clicking on.
Bit.ly also provides some really interesting information such as where people clicked on links from. For example, it breaks it down by day and gives you a bar graph. You can see how many times a specific link has been clicked. They will also tell you what has been clicked on by date.
Yesterday, I sent out a Newsletter and I was able to track how many clicks I got live. It can be fun or frustrating to see how people are responding to your efforts in real time.
[thrive_2step id='5182']Click here to download the instructions as seen below.[/thrive_2step]
Here is a quick tutorial on how I use Bit.ly
Note: You will need to create an account. It is easy to signup and it is free.
Step 1: Sign in to Bit.ly
Step 2: Paste a link into the space at the top right (follow the red arrow)
Step 3: Click on Copy in the Popup on the right
Next, track your Social Media clicks with Bitly Stats
Step1: Click on Stats
Step 2: Look at the bar graph to get a general feel
Step 3: Click on a line in the bar graph to see more details
Step 4: Scroll and review what people are clicking on.
This is a quick general overview of how I measure my success on Social Media. I really appreciate Bitly and the fact that they offer this free version of their tool.
How do you measure your social media efforts?
Links mentioned in show:
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Renee,
Great post, thanks for the tip on Bit.ly. I totally forgot how it gives you great stats in one location as opposed to just using any random link shorter! Very good point.
Fred
Excellent post, I’m going to share it with my students!
Thanks
Cool. Thanks for the tip one Bit.ly. I will try it on my blog.
Great post.
I have to say I was really drawn in by the title. Although I will concede that I’m more of a Tiny URL man myself :)
You know Andrew, I have not thought about tiny url in a while. Why do you prefer them?