A growing problem in the world of Content Marketing is the inability to track Dark Social shares. If you think social media doesn’t impact your marketing efforts, think again. Dark social sharing accounts for more than half of all the content you share online.
URL shorteners are one of the few legal tools that grant marketers access to the dark social content feed. Using Bit.ly's tracking analytics feature, for example, will help you monitor the number of shared links that you were previously unable to track.
Other advantages:
If you're sharing a link on Twitter, you're limited to 140 characters. Any URL you share can quickly eat up those characters and limit your actual message. (Hint: You don't just want to post a link; you need to israel whatsapp number database tell people what they can expect when they click.)
Every time your link is visible, the longer it is, the harder it is to remember (and it's not very pretty either). Shortening it (especially if you use a service that will let you choose a keyword for the link) can solve this problem for most users.
Some URL shortening tools allow you to track how your audience uses and shares your URL.
Like any self-respecting technique, URL shortening has its pros and cons. We've already seen its advantages. Now let's look at the reasons why using short links may not be effective:
There are a few negative points about URL shorteners. One of them is trust and credibility: your users like to know where they are going when they click on a link. If you don't disclose the destination domain, trust issues can arise. Put yourself in the user's shoes: would you click on a shortened link if you don't know the person?
Unfortunately, URL shortening tools are not 100% reliable. What happens if your URL shortening service is offline when you send a message to your contacts? Obviously, your links won't work.
URL shortening companies don't last forever. What happens to the thousands of links you've built over time on the Internet if the company you choose to use goes out of business? That could mean thousands of inbound links overnight. That won't just affect direct traffic, but also your SEO rankings.
It takes some extra work to use a URL shortener. We're trying to make things easier, not more complicated.
URL shorteners inhibit clicks! As marketers we want people to click on our links ~ Click-through rates decrease when using a shortening service.
If the servers that converted them go down or malfunction, the shortened links may be lost.
If the short link is not personalized, the user may be afraid to click on the link because they do not know the destination path.
Users may feel vulnerable on the privacy side, as the link change can be traced.