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Following on from our recent post recommending you do a little spring cleaning of your online presence, here are a couple of additional housekeeping suggestions, this time on using links back to your blog or website.
Automating Tools
If you use tools to automate your broadcasts, it’s a good idea check what those broadcasts look like when they go live, and check any links before leaving them to run. I’ve noticed that when people use Facebook to post back to Twitter, the links take you to an abbreviated note on Facebook. (Has anyone else noticed this?) You then have to click on the title of the Facebook post before being taken through to the blog post or web page referred to in the original tweet. This is far too clunky and confusing, as well as being one click too many.
General Link Housekeeping
When you’ve put a lot of effort into creating a promotion, blog post, email newsletter or other online content, do take time to test all links before tweeting or publishing, especially if you’ve recently made changes to the structure of your website or blog. It will save you that heart-sink moment when a kind soul tells you they tried to click but got an error message. The worst part is that you’ll never know who else might have been interested but didn’t get in touch when the link didn’t work for them.
Using Links on Twitter
Links on Twitter need to be prefaced with ‘http://’ to make them into ‘live’ or clickable links (you don’t actually need the ‘www.’ as well).
With the restricted number of characters in a tweet, use a URL shortening tool like www.tinyurl.com so you have more room for your message! (If you use a Twitter client like TweetDeck or Hootsuite, they have built in URL shorteners.)
Free Twitter Resource
If you’re new to Twitter, or want to find out more about using it, there’s an excellent little e-book entitled ‘Twitter is Not Just about Cheese Sandwiches’ by Twitter-Guru @MarkShaw (go to www.markshaw.biz to get your copy).
About Louise
Louise Barnes-Johnston has been working in social media marketing since 2007 after realising that it was a powerful marketing tool which would enable her clients to raise the profile of their businesses on the internet, even when working to a limited budget. Her specialism is in researching social media practices; trying out the most effective online tools and then sharing the best of them with her clients.
