Quick-N-Dirty Run-Down Of How To Use Bitly For Your Personal Branding Initiative

A short and sweet overview of what Bitly is, what it can do, how to use it, and what it can mean for your professional and even personal endeavors.

Screenshot of a Bitly splash-page, outlining its most basic functionality.

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Screen clip of an example of a customized short-URL; as used by Verizon.

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Screen grab showing how you can even customize the "hash."

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... a hash is normally just a automatically generated set of random characters, which differentiates each of the shortened links created by the platform.

As interest grows, multiple brand-identities and users can be managed...

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... via one Super-Admin console, which I can do. Basically, if not only you, but say 50 other HR professionals spread throughout the country, want to start using the cool, new "4jo.bz" link shortener to promote various job openings; that can be accomplished very easily through this platform; as well as the ability to manage multiple short-urls, such as: "143.la" or "4in.ch."

A poorly worded inference to being able to control the information flow...

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... of users' engagement with your brand and the content that you share. Rather than having to rely on or pay extra for Facebook and other platforms to share this information with you; you now can simply monitor the activity yourself, regardless of whether or not a particular platform gives access to such information.

But no, we do not "own" our audience.

Soon to be launched feature to allow for monitoring the impact of changes...

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... that you might make in various types of content you share or other factors; such as timing of posts, location tagging, topic or genre of content, distribution settings, etc.

Another soon to be launched enhancement offering more detailed information...

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... as to where from exactly your traffic engages with the content you share.

Again, poorly communicated insight to maximizing the power...

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... of using this technology and the information gathered from it, to more effectively tailor your brand-message and other content to build stronger engagement with your target audience.

Now, this is a screenshot of the home/login page...

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... in the center of which, at the top, you can see where there is an option to either sign-up or sign-in.

Clicking "Sign In" will bring you to this page...

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... where at the bottom, you can see that there is still an option to sign-up and register anew. Also, you can note that there are multiple registration and login methods available; Facebook, Twitter, and direct email are all possibilities.

This is what a user dashboard looks like...

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... once there's been some activity on the account; by saving and sharing links. To the left is the navigation; left of center, is a list of previously saved links; the larger portion of the right-side of the screen is an overview of the information regarding the various links, with a responsive automatic display of the currently highlighted link.

More detailed view of a link's information

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Twitter: @jayn3n / Via bitly.com

Twitter: @jayn3n / Via bitly.com

Clicking "Stats" from the navigation menu of the main dashboard will bring you here.

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This is probably the most important page...

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... it is here where you setup your customized domain. Once purchasing a domain that you'd like to use as your custom bitly tool, this is the screen where you'll complete the configuration. This is not all that complicated and Bitly does a pretty good job of explaining the steps.

It is also important to note, that Bitly says that this domain can only be used for shortening. While that's not entirely true, attempting to configure a domain to both host a fully operational site as well as work with the bit-link tool could prove to be more trouble than it's worth. As you can see, you can point the main site to another site, however you would then need to host any additional objects at the host of the site being pointed to. Basically, it's better just to either use a domain where you'll only plan to host a very basic site, like mine, or choose a domain that is only going to be used as a short-branded extension of your main brand's site.