![]() ![]() Without stats, how are we as digital marketers supposed to know something is really working? When you use URL shorteners you’ll be able to know how many clicks you’re receiving and prove the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. If you haven’t already, test some of these tools out and see which works best for you. Below is a video with more about vanity URLs: They are one of several organisations using vanity URLs nowadays. They provide the same information as a shortened URL but instead of showing up as bit.ly or ow.ly it could show up like Time Inc.’s vanity URL which is ti.me. What are Vanity/Branded URLs?Ī vanity URL is simply a custom branded URL that replaces one of the above URL shorteners and uses a company’s customised branding. The important thing is to have the proper social media analytics tools to measure the performance of shortened URLs. While the most popular incentive to using URL shorteners has been to avoid exceeding Twitter’s 140 character limit, it’s a good idea to use these shorteners on any social network, in e-mails, and on your site. ![]() Two Frequently Asked Questions about URL Shorteners… Are shortened URLs only for Twitter? Here’s sample of an ow.ly summary report generated within Hootsuite: Essentially, URL click data can be used to increase the chances of your followers clicking a link. For example, if 50 people click on a URL about a funny post promoting your new mobile app but only 10 people click on a URL about a more mundane post, this knowledge can be applied for future content creation and sharing. With the Ow.ly tool you can see a quick snapshot of the number of clicks on any link you shortened within HootSuite – insight you can use to determine what tweets or posts resonate most with your followers and potential conversions. The Ow.ly URL shortener is a standout because it tracks how many “human clicks” your links receive. When you shorten a URL you’ll be able to track click-through rates and even track where the clicks are occurring geographically. If you post a long URL, you won’t be able to track clicks or real-time engagement with it. Using these shorteners provides you with valuable data on how people behave when faced with your shortened URL. Remember though: bit.ly tracks all clicks, even non-human ones. It also offers tracking metrics so you know exactly how many people are clicking on your link. bit.ly is one of the first and most popular URL shortening services. 3 Top URL Shortenersīit.ly is a free service that allows you to share links directly from their site to your Twitter profile, or copy/paste the link for use anywhere. Some URL shorteners also provide tracking abilities so you can track how many clicks you receive on the shortened link. As you may know, a URL shortener converts a regular URL into a more condensed format. This post will cover what URL shorteners are, which ones are used the most today, and why they should be used in the first place. So much effort is put into creating great content that this little string of characters gets knocked to the bottom of the list even though it can be crucial to our social media marketing and SEO. When both the reliability and speed rankings are combined, ow.ly and bit.ly tie for first place overall, followed by Is.gd and Su.pr.We often overlook the unsung hero of our social media posts: the URL. Ow.ly, however, had 100% uptime, and bit.ly came in second with 99.98 percent. Even with nearly 80 hours of estimated annual downtime, Tr.im still had 99.10 percent reliability. But when it comes to reliability, Tr.im had nearly twice the estimated yearly downtime as the next worse service ( Twurl). Tr.im was the third slowest after Cli.gs and Snip.url. The fastest service was actually Is.gd (with an average load time of 163 milliseconds), followed by bit.ly (261 milliseconds) and ow.ly (289 milliseconds). Pingdom tested two things: the average time it took each service to load a page (overhead) and its uptime. Overall, Ow.ly and Bit.ly came out on top, while Tr.im came in dead last (no wonder nobody would buy it). ![]() But which one is the best? Royal Pingdom decided to conduct a test over the past 30 days to put nine of URL shortening services through the paces. The rise of Twitter and its character constraints has made URL shortening services popular. You want the redirect to be fast and reliable. After all, the main purpose of URL shortening services such as bit.ly and TinyURL are to redirect you back to the original (long) link someone shortened in the first place. Speed and reliability are also important. When it comes to shortening links, the brevity of the URL is not the only factor you should consider. ![]()
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