FullBleed

Randi Meredith, http://www.randimeredith.com

They’re short, they’re cute, and they’re strategically important with respect to brand impressions: custom short URLs. Sure, they’re beneficial in that they make short shorter, drive traffic, and adhere to character-limit constraints in tools like Twitter. But what makes custom short URLs even more beneficial is that they maximize brand awareness and impressions by adapting to changes in technology and user behavior.

Non-customized short URLs — made possible through URL shorteners like TinyURL and Bitly, for example — have an obvious value; namely, their shortness. After all, the shorter a URL, the easier (perceptively speaking) to ultimately “share” that URL. But what’s notable here is that the ability for content to be shared is growing in popularity. Within most major news publications (according to Alexa), Google accounts for about 18-22 percent of site traffic while shared content enablers — such as Twitter, Facebook and Digg — account for 8-14 percent, collectively; a percentage that is increasing each month.

And, because of this trend in content sharing, users are being exposed to more messages now than ever before. Connecting with a message is easy enough online; indeed, you demonstrate it through each click-through whenever you see a message, ad, or brand identifier and click on it to be transported instantly to the source of that idea. In this action alone, you indicate that you’ve not only consumed some piece of content, but that it had enough personal meaning to inspire you to take some desired action — in most cases, a click.

However, using third-party URL shorteners hides our brands and, thus, decreases maximum brand exposure. For example, when Tweeting about a New York Times article, only the title and a bit.ly URL are originally sent. There is no brand recognition … no exposure, credit, or impression. So, if that URL isn’t recognizable, you’re missing a great opportunity to connect that message and user’s corresponding action with your brand. Being exposed to something like washpost.com/3mWu6 or nyt.com/3mWu6 (rather than bit.ly/3mWu6) conveys much more brand value to an otherwise passive consumer of online content. And, even if that consumer receives shared content within his or her social stream but chooses not to click-through, there’s still — at the very least — an association formed with that brand.

It is by realizing the value of this brand exposure that is the case for custom short URLs. We can’t control what is shared or how it is shared, but by removing the barriers of auto-shortening as well as coming out from behind the curtain of third-party shorteners, we allow our brands to flourish. It’s about building relationships through association; it’s about being as visible in the consumption stream as possible.

THE CURRENT ECOSYSTEM

Being visible remains a priority for brands that have worked tirelessly to achieve the highest degrees of search engine optimization (SEO) possible. But beyond SEO, the leading brands online now also employ community managers to facilitate or respond to brand-related conversations in innumerable social media outlets. Why? Because those brands understand that social shared content will eventually drive as much traffic to them as concerted SEO efforts once did. And custom short URLs are a strong identifier for brands competing for their messages to stand out and be consumed in that social stream.

Since the very first custom short URLs started appearing, much has evolved in the way of adoption and progress. From major news publications such as The New York Times, POLITICO and The Washington Post to social networks such as YouTube, Flickr and Foursquare, the links are spreading — shorter, branded, and much more recognizable.

But another benefit beyond the value of that brand recognition is that custom short URLs convey context essential to our wading through an endless stream of information. The increasing mobility of our content consumption and the decreasing space (and attention spans) for communicating that content almost requires additional context provided by custom short URLs.

For example, the message “I am with Barack Obama” accompanied by a generic link can imply a number of things. But custom short URLs can remove that ambiguity. So, if the URL accompanying the above statement is:

• A New York Times link, it implies that the statement is in reference to a news source citing the President.
• A Foursquare link, it implies that the statement is in reference to a physical location related to the President.
• A Flickr or YouTube link, it implies being physically next to or in very close proximity with the President, with evidence!
• An Onion article link, it implies that the statement is humorous and satirical in nature.

In all situations, the statement is consumed and the source is revealed. The source gets brand recognition, the messenger gives context to his or her message, and we as the consumer now have contextual expectations.

More and more content publishers are shortening their URLs for shortness sake and branding them for recognition … and now, users appreciate those efforts thanks to the added context.

MAKING SHORT, SHORTER

You might notice organizations using country-specific domain extensions to make short representative forms of their more traditional URLs. For example: The Washington Post recently has created http://wpo.st, POLITICO recently acquired http://politi.co, Flickr uses http://flic.kr, The New York Times makes use of http://nyti.ms, and the Gowalla custom short URL is http://gowal.la. While short and cute, they’re practical, even if not always exactly memorable. They separate themselves from their traditional URLs, sometimes for technical reasons, but often times to be as short as possible while almost always being fun; we’re being social, let’s be fun, too! The objective is to stay short but ensure the brand recognition is still in tact.

DO IT YOURSELF CUSTOM SHORT URLS

It’s new and exciting, but far from complicated! If you’re a technical whiz on the server-side, you can set up a redirect script in a matter of hours. For the rest of us, there are three popular services for accomplishing custom short URLs: “Shorty,” “Yourls,” and “Awe.sm.”

Shorty, http://get-shorty.com, is a free service and one of the most popular. It does require that you install it on your server; which, of course, requires a tad bit of technical know-how (it always requires a PHP environment). It’s quick, simple, and does the trick!

Yourls, http://yourls.org, is another free PHP-based service that requires an install on your server; but, it does come with a very easy-to-use (and set up) WordPress plug-in! They also have an API available for all of you more-developer-minded folks out there.

Awe.sm, http://awe.sm, is well, totally awesome! It’s the simplest and easiest to use service out there, and it requires no real technical know-how or server nonsense! However, it does come with a price-tag; $99/year. Perhaps not worth it for a personal blog, but a nominal cost for any organization!

There are many other third-party services that make custom short URLs possible. Most include tracking and analytics to really see how your custom short URLs are being used and working.

And you might not know this, but many of the content management systems we already use today, such as WordPress and ExpressionEngine, have had short URL alternatives since their inception. For example, naturally, http://mashable.com/2010/05/28/ipad-international-launch/ is also http://mashable.com/?p=288150 (a shorter version inherent in WordPress).

LET’S KEEP THIS SHORT

Short is practical and often necessary, but custom should be strategic and always recognizable.