Twitter has done a great job of making Internet users write more concisely with its 140 character rule. It helps that URL shortening services let us share links that may be too long in their original state.

TinyURL and Bit.ly are great ways to condense a link into a small amount of characters for tweeting and retweeting purposes.

The advantage to using Bit.ly is how it doubles as a marketing tool  for departments and companies investing their time and money in Internet marketing and social media.

Customizing your URL: Let’s say your company is positively mentioned in a well-known publication like the Wall Street Journal. You probably want to share that with your employees and customers through e-mail, blogs and Twitter. But the shortened URL uses a random string of letters and numbers – nothing specific to your brand.

Bit.ly allows you to set up a custom URL ending to the link. This lets you change the link from what could look like http://bit.ly/123asdf to http://bit.ly/wsjfeature. The customized, shortened URL now lets the reader know at a glance where the link will take him/her.

Tracking your Content: It’s important to know how many people have viewed your content and by shortening your URL’s with Bit.ly, this is cost-effectively possible.

Place a plus sign (+) after any Bit.ly address and you can automatically see how many times people clicked on it and shared the URL, what service they used to find it and what country they were in when they first viewed your link.

Credible and Trustworth: Bit.ly also makes sure that the shortened URL isn’t directing you to a site with a vicious virus or computer damaging malware. The company runs all links through independent sites like SpamCop and Google Safe Browsing, so your customers can trust that your link is safe.

Bit.ly can help you track your marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition.  And as Tweetdeck, a free Twitter application that helps you manage your tweets, uses Bit.ly as its default shortener, it’s easy to start incorporating this tool into your regular tweeting routine.

So, start shortening!

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