Currently, the largest and one of the most populer social media service people are flocking to is, you guessed it, Twitter. One of the main selling points of Twitter which is ironically its biggest shortcoming is the extremely limited 140 character updates. This makes pushing out links a slightly difficult thing to accomplish. That is why services such as URL shorteners have blossomed over the past few months which turns links like this:
While services such as bit.ly certainly solve the issue concerning long links and Twitter, these services are missing two things that are needed when running a Twitter account for your business. Awe.sm, a custom domain shortening service from Snowball Factory, solves these two issues in one fell swoop.
Issue #1 – Your Business Name
When running a social media campaign for your business one of your main focuses should be getting your business out in the wild while remaining non-intrusive. Using services like Bit.ly put a cloak over your companies name and in effect, no one who sees that Bit.ly shortened link will make the association with your company. Awe.sm solves this by allowing you to use your domain as your own private shortening service.
This ensures that nearly every time a company related link gets passed around, your company’s domain will also be associated with the shortened link.
Issue #2 – Security
When sharing a shortened link on Twitter, using shortening services such as Bit.ly means that the viewer of your tweet has no idea if the link truly goes to the destination as described. By using a shortened link with your own domain through Awe.sm, you can create a level of trust as well as security when people or more importantly, potential and current customers, click through your tweeted links.
Awe.sm does offer other features that are beneficial to your company as that expand beyond custom domain shortening. Awe.sm allows you to view data on who clicks on your shared links as well as the ability to integrate your data via API’s or through popular analytic service Google Analytics. The only downfall to all this? Awe.sm is not free.
Awe.sm costs $99 dollars for a year. While this may seem like a hefty price at first, the benefits will be great if you run or work for a business that is serious about going social. High profile technology blog, Techcrunch, uses Awe.sm for all there custom-domain shortened links and as of yet, no complaints have been raised. With Awe.sm, URL shortening for your business is in your control.
Want to comment? Sorry, I have disabled those, but I respond to nearly every e-mail I receive. So why not drop me a line at holdenpage@pagesaresocial.com
The Best Web Address Shortener For Your Business, Awe.sm
Currently, the largest and one of the most populer social media service people are flocking to is, you guessed it, Twitter. One of the main selling points of Twitter which is ironically its biggest shortcoming is the extremely limited 140 character updates. This makes pushing out links a slightly difficult thing to accomplish. That is why services such as URL shorteners have blossomed over the past few months which turns links like this:
http://pagesaresocial.com/2009/08/08/three-reasons-to-use-friendfeed-for-business/
Into this:
http://bit.ly/zhivO
While services such as bit.ly certainly solve the issue concerning long links and Twitter, these services are missing two things that are needed when running a Twitter account for your business. Awe.sm, a custom domain shortening service from Snowball Factory, solves these two issues in one fell swoop.
Issue #1 – Your Business Name
When running a social media campaign for your business one of your main focuses should be getting your business out in the wild while remaining non-intrusive. Using services like Bit.ly put a cloak over your companies name and in effect, no one who sees that Bit.ly shortened link will make the association with your company. Awe.sm solves this by allowing you to use your domain as your own private shortening service.
This ensures that nearly every time a company related link gets passed around, your company’s domain will also be associated with the shortened link.
Issue #2 – Security
When sharing a shortened link on Twitter, using shortening services such as Bit.ly means that the viewer of your tweet has no idea if the link truly goes to the destination as described. By using a shortened link with your own domain through Awe.sm, you can create a level of trust as well as security when people or more importantly, potential and current customers, click through your tweeted links.
Awe.sm does offer other features that are beneficial to your company as that expand beyond custom domain shortening. Awe.sm allows you to view data on who clicks on your shared links as well as the ability to integrate your data via API’s or through popular analytic service Google Analytics. The only downfall to all this? Awe.sm is not free.
Awe.sm costs $99 dollars for a year. While this may seem like a hefty price at first, the benefits will be great if you run or work for a business that is serious about going social. High profile technology blog, Techcrunch, uses Awe.sm for all there custom-domain shortened links and as of yet, no complaints have been raised. With Awe.sm, URL shortening for your business is in your control.
Share