Inbound Marketing University

If you're a twitter user that is online interacting and exchanging ideas, thoughts and laughs I think you're ready for the next step. And that is, to start adding links (URLs) to your tweets. Sometimes there's more to say or share than what the 140 characters allow. Now, if you're a veteran twitter user you know that it's not a tool to just go on and plug yourself or business every time you tweet. It's about interacting, discussing, and helping others by adding valuable content to the stream. Many social media gurus say a good ratio is 8 to 1. For every 8 tweets you can throw in 1 valuable tweet about yourself or product. So now, when you're interacting or tweeting about something you're interested in take it one step further, do some research and post that link about the story you're talking about or for our 3TV news people the story that you're covering. Make it easy for your twitter followers to find and read about the stories which will allow them to share with their followers and will give them more information to start a discussion or give you feedback. How do I add URLs to my tweets? There are many url shortener applications available that are free and easy to use. Decisions can be made by knowing what type of interface you want to use and what you want to measure. Here's a run down of three easy to use url shorteners. Tinyurl is a free website that does not require a log-in membership. It's super easy to use and by adding the website to your bookmarks or toolbar it's probably the fastest way to shorten a url of a web page that you like. Here's some image shots from the website to show how easy it is to shorten a url using tinyurl.com. Step 1: go to www.tinyurl.com and paste the url in the box that you want to shorten. Click on the "Make TinyURL" button. The results will look something like this http://tinyurl.com/yjxp4vm if you don't like the jumble of letters at the end you can always type in your own alias before you click on the "Make TinyURL" button. For example, you could type in "hscontest" and then make your tinyurl. The results will now be www.tinyurl.com/hscontest Step 2: After you've made your tinyurl just copy & paste the URL into your twitter status, write your message and update. You've now taken your message beyond the 140 characters. Step 3: If you want something quick and simple I'd suggest using tinyurl and adding it to your toolbar or bookmarks. That way when you're visiting a website that you want to share all you have to do is click on the tinyurl button on your toolbar and it will bypass the steps on the tinyurl website and just give you the tinyurl to use. The downside to using tinyurl as your url shortener is that if you want to measure the activity of how many total and unique clicks it's getting this free tool does not track that. But, if you have analytics put in place on your website you may not care about this detailed type of tracking. Bit.ly - is another free tool that is easy to use and tracks your url activity in real-time. The interface allows you to shorten a url and post it to your twitter account without having to leave the site. Here's a quick snapshot of the interface: Bit.ly is an all in one process that makes it easy to shorten urls and share. You can track your urls in real-time with their detailed reporting including total clicks, referrers and location. And, to make things easier you can also add Bit.ly to your toolbar or your blackberry or iphone. The only thing that I don't like about the tool is that if you know how, you can look at the activity of anyone posting a bit.ly url. If this is something you don't care about then you might want to check this tool out. Snipurl - is yet another free url shortener tool with a semi-easy interface that allows you to track your urls in real time and transfer them to RSS feeds. This is the tool I currently use only because as far as I know no one can look up stats on my shortened urls plus, I like to RSS feed the snips into my igoogle page to see my most popular urls in real-time. The cons about this tool is that it can be a little glitchy and it probably takes a little longer to create a snip and paste it into your twitter account. But, if you have the patience it does have some good reporting such as total and unique clicks and allows you to title your urls with keywords so you can manage and track what you're snipping in an easy search. Here's a screen shot of the interface: These are just three url shorteners that you can use to extend the conversation on twitter beyond the 140 characters. There are many more social media tools out there that will allow you to shorten urls and track not only one social media account but many of them at the same time with stats. I'd be reluctant to not mention a few but to go into detail is an other blog post coming soon. Here's a few that I know about and like Tweetdeck, HootSuite, Seesmic, Threadsy and twhirl. If you have any favorites please share and tell me what your favorite element is about them. Until then, happy tweeting and I look forward to following your tweets.