Social media can be a great tool for growing and sharing your business, and a good link can bring in many customers when it is used properly. The key to social media is to be specific and to the point, as users want to finish tasks quickly and read only the needed information. It is intended to be fast and simple, so long URLs and links are not going to be the best fit. A shorter link can grab attention faster and encourage more people to follow them.
A link that takes the potential customer to your site should be short enough to be read easily yet explain in a short and to the point manner what the link is for, where it will lead, and what to expect when they get there. Longer links are less likely to be read, this discourages people from following them as they do not know where they lead or what to expect, and it may prove to be less helpful in bringing new people to your website.
Long URLs can make a link long, complicated, and hard to remember. When this happens it may be suspected to be spam, or untrustworthy, or some simply will not take the time to read it all and choose to follow it. By shortening links, and in many cases using a system that allows you to create your own URL as you shorten it, it becomes easier to understand, easier to read, and in turn more likely to be trusted. They can become associated with you website and your business name, allowing it to be easily associated with you and trusted. This encourages people to trust and follow the link and increasing traffic to your website.
There are programs who have been created to help shorten links before you post them. These services often provide feed back on how many people have followed the link, how often it is being used, and where it is most popular. Those metrics can help to build your business and see what is working and which are not. Many allow you to choose what shows, which wording or abbreviations are included in the link and this freedom lets you choose links that connect to your business. Helping to build your brand with familiar terms and brand names will create trust among people and they will be more likely to follow your links after that trust has been established.
Before creating your shorter URLs it is important to consider what your goals are, who your target market is, where you want to post your link, and where you want it to take them. You can use your links to increase awareness of your brand, advertise your business, bring new people to your website, or introduce a new part of your page. Once you know what the goal of your new link will be you can decide who the target market is. When choosing a target market consider who is most likely to need your product or service and where they spend their online time so that they will see it. After choosing a target market it is easy to discover where they spend most of their hours online and what social media sites would be best suited to your target market and your brand. Post the most in the areas that you expect to see the most traffic from, and then post a few times in some other social media networks just to ensure it is consistent and cohesive. The next step is to determine which area on your site that you want the link to go, and from there you can create your link.
Social media is a broad topic that is broken up into many social media sites and spaces. There are different age groups and personalities that use each, so when choosing which social media networks to post on it is valuable to choose the ones that have the most people who are going to be interested in your business. By using the social media network that is the best fit for your potential customers you can get the best results for the least amount of effort. People who are on social media because they have just a few minutes to check in and then get back to what they were doing will appreciate short links and compressed URLs that are to the point, easily identifiable, and predictable. They will often scroll past any that look too long, that are full of random numbers or letters, or do not have signs of what they are or where they go. These people do not have the extra time to spend deciphering what the link is for or if it can be trusted, so the faster and more clearly your link can be identified and connected to your brand the better results you will have.
If your targe market is more people who enjoy spending time on social media and browse it for something to do, then you may find that a shorter URL in your link will create trust and encourage them to follow the links to your website. They will be less trusting of ones that seem confusing or made up, and will be more likely to follow your links in the future if they enjoy the first one. For these it is better to link to a higher content page on your site that has information they will find useful but also provides some enjoyment of their time spent.
There are many ways that using a shortened URL in your social media posts will help to boost the number of times it is used and who follows it. Using a program to shorten them is worth the time invested as they will look cleaner and will carry more clues about what exactly the link is for and where it goes. They help to build trust and to build your brand name.
