Benefits of Bit.ly!

There are tons of tools out on the interweb that are built to help your social media marketing campaign run smoothly.  One of the tools out on the free market is Bit.ly.  I know it might seem like Bit.ly is old news and passe but let’s take a fresh look at what this tool can do!  I promise it will be worth your while.

The little link shortener that could

Bit.ly has a new look and the ablility to “Shorten, share and track your links” is an instrumental part to any online marketing campaign.  If you’ll notice I didn’t specify a social media marketing campaign I think too often the tools created in the age of social media are overlooked in terms of integrated marketing campaigns.  When you think strategy you need to look at the big picture both on and off the web.

When you login you’ll notice the newest feature of Bit.ly: Bundle.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to Bundle any of my links yet but this feature seems very helpful if you were having an event and wanted to give people pertinent information like a link to the event website, a link to the registration page, and a link to the sponsors. In one shortened link you can give users all of the information they need.  Hopefully Bit.ly will come out with a tutorial explaining how to use this new feature.

One of the best features of Bit.ly is the ability to customize your shortened link.   This lets you give a specific url that can keep your online branding in sync.  For instance I like the show Chelsea Lately on e!.  So if I were to write a blog post about the show I might want to customize the link to look like this:

Now that I have customized and shortened my link I can share it on the internet and Track the hits.  Just log into your account and scroll down the page till you see the link you want to track.  Click the info button and Bit.ly gives you the link metrics:

Bit.ly has many benefits for a marketing campaign.  Before you launch a promotion be sure to verify that the tools you use can benefit your project.  Make sure they have metrics that you can use to track engagement.  Bit.ly is a tool that can keep your branding with custom links and up to the minute tracking information.  The next time you run a campaign give it a try and see if it is the right tool for you.