Social media marketing is a type of internet marketing that is becoming perhaps the most important type. As the name suggests, it is advertising on social networks to achieve better sales, more clicks on your website, and all the other reasons why marketing otherwise exists. And why has it become so important? It is because we live in an era of social media, where people can’t imagine their one day without Facebook, Instagram, and many other networks. There are more and more generations that have grown up with that and the first place where they look for any information is the above-mentioned networks. That is why you must strive for this type of marketing to be as well developed and designed as possible. There are various tools that will help you and which are very useful, and among them, the URL shortener stands out. What exactly is a URL shortener and what are the benefits of using it, we will explain in this article.
What is a URL shortener?
It is a tool intended for internet marketing and is extremely useful, although many neglects the importance of using this tool. It works by shortening URLs, which are long and complex, and spoil the look of the post. This is not the only function, because this tool performs many other tasks such as counting clicks and the like. This tool primarily became popular on Twitter, where the number of words that could be written was limited. But it is now used everywhere because it gives a very neat look to the post and has many other benefits.
Benefits of URL shorteners for social media marketing
1. Improves the appearance of the post
A long URL, full of different letters and numbers that make no sense to the reader has a very negative impact on the appearance of the post. It often happens that when someone sees that half of the post is an unreadable URL, they do not read the rest of the content at all. With the help of a URL shortener, you will easily shorten the URL and increase the probability that someone will click on it. Just as you don’t use automatically generated passwords, don’t put in an automatically generated URL, but take a few extra minutes to fix it.
2. It gives you insight into clicks and other information
The capabilities of this tool are incomparably greater than just shortening the URL. One of the main benefits is that it provides you with details about the people who clicked on your link. You know the exact time, location, and a number of clicks. Also, you will know if someone reposted your post. Those are very useful information, which you will use to further improve your marketing campaign.
3. Better brand recognition
You already know that creating a brand and making it as recognizable as possible is often the deciding factor in whether a brand will be successful or not. There are various ways to make it as recognizable as possible, and one of them is certainly to present it to people as often as possible and to keep it in their consciousness and subconscious. Design a branded link by using URL shortening and instead of a URL it will be something that will be important for the recognition of your brand. Every successful company has a branded link, so you must have one too.
4. You can add it to the video
If video is also an integral part of your marketing campaign, then you need a URL shortener. In that video, you definitely want to mention your website so to lure as many people to visit it, but if the address is long, no one will remember it while watching the video. That’s why it should be short and easy to remember so that people can find your site in the search engine immediately after watching the video.
5. Increases site traffic
Your goal must always be to have as much traffic on your site as possible, in order to have as many customers as possible. And this way you will achieve it very easily, and now we will explain to you how. Any marketing campaign you run on social media, you need to talk mostly about general things related to what you do, and only occasionally mention your brand. If you mention your brand too much, the effect will be the opposite of what you want, which is to turn people away instead of attracting them. With URL shortener you can mention your brand and your website many more times than you would otherwise because they will be linked to certain keywords, which will actually be linked to your site. You will get what you want, and you will also follow the rules of successful marketing.
Best URL shorteners
BitlyBR
At bitlybr.com you can do whatever you want with your URL. In addition to the basic purpose, which is to shorten too long URLs, it offers you various other options such as advanced analytics. You will receive a detailed report on everything, such as countries, cities, device types, number of clicks, and everything else. It is especially specialized in social media.
Rebrandly
In addition to all the features that most other URL tools have, the additional focus is on the brand, as its name suggests. You can do different things for free that will contribute to the recognition of your brand. Also, it automatically tracks the popularity of each of your links, and you will have a QR code.
TinyURL
One of the first URL tools, it has been around for almost 20 years. It is clear to you that it is reliable and high quality because it has survived for so long. Although it has an obsolete interface, it is completely irrelevant, because it is very easy to use and will serve you best when you are short on time. Also, the URL you create there will never expire, which is very useful.
Conclusion
The competition is huge and everyone is trying to promote themselves as much as possible. So you have to use every potential leverage to your advantage, and this is definitely one of your most useful tools.