HootSuite blog – Social Media Dashboard

You’ve likely noticed distinctive (albeit slightly odd looking) web addresses at some of your favorite social sites as global brands seek to maximize brand impressions within character-limited messages by creating short vanity URLs.

Domain Shopping

Before you can start using a custom address, first you have to choose and purchase a vanity URL. This requires a bit of creativity and occasionally some international diplomacy.

Here are some tactics to keep in mind while brainstorming:

1. Reflect brand personality — Shorter isn’t always better, memorability and personality are important. For example, the folks behind the “Cheezburger” humor-empire use http://dbl.chz.gr to provide a slice of culture with each URL
2. Make it exciting-ish — Another strategy is to use an action in the URL like social/tech news site Mashable who use http://mash.to (incidentally from Tonga) which implies a call to action as does PBS’s http://go.pbs.org
3. Cut the letters — The most common ways to get short are to remove vowels, like Google’s http://goo.gl, reduce your brand to initials like Wordpress’ http://wp.me and/or remove almost everything like Twitter’s http://t.co
4. Get to know the codes — Check out this Wikipedia entry of top level domain suffixes including: .im Isle of Mann, .tv Tuvalu, .fm Federated States of Micronesia, .ly Libya, and .me from Montenegro. Keep in mind, not all countries offer domain suffixes while others limit availability
5. Find something *actually* available – Once you have some ideas on the white board, you need to find out what’s available — and DO NOT announce your ideas publicly or a squatter may beat you to the punch
6. Choose a reputable vendor — Explore availability at a reputable domain registrar like: http://sedo.com | http://domai.nr | http://www.gandi.net/ Not sure about a registrar? Do a web search to hear what their customers have to say

Get Shorter

Seeking a unique URL for your business. Well, good news, now your company can get a custom branded short web address while still capturing the valuable statistics you rely on — all from within HootSuite dashboard.

Along with the new premium plans, HootSuite now offers custom URL shortening services through the tried and tested Ow.ly tool.

The benefits of using Ow.ly include:

• SEO – All URLs are indexable and fully redirect for SEO best practices
• Control – Share access with selected team members for control over who can shorten URLs
• Portability – Track clicks on short URLs from anywhere including newsletters, comments, Facebook, and micro-sites
• Flexiblity – Choose which shortener to use each time: Custom, Ow.ly, or Ht.ly (with branded social bar)
• Security – Links are checked against Google’s Safe Browsing blacklist to thwart phishing and Malware attacks

Owly Pro is available to customers using the Enterprise or Platinum package for an additional charge. To get shorter, simply send email to pro (at) ow.ly or contact your VIP Ambassador.

Once registered, you’ll receive technical instructions which should take under 10 minutes for your technical team to update your DNS records and provide a list of authorized publishers.

Your Tips

What other advice can you offer about choosing and registering a short domain name? What are some of your faves? Did you imagine this business trend 10 years ago? We’d be pleased to read your thoughts in the comments.

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Plenty going on here at HootSuite HQ but before we lose track, we’re continuing on with the News Round-up catch-up fest with a variety of remarks, reviews, accolades and anecdotes from magazine, websites, vidcast and lists. Enjoy and stay tuned for more announcements coming shortly.

It’s a Good Thing

Min Online (a “Media Industry Newsletter: Covering Magazines for 60 Years”) announced their Best of the Web Award Winners including Tweeter of the Year – Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s eponymous spokeswoman – Martha Stewart.

We mention this because The Martha Show use HootSuite to share musing with their audience and we think that is as tasty as homemade pie.

Here’s a snippet from Min’s article:

Not only is Martha Stewart far and away the magazine industry’s highest profile tweeter, her embrace of the microblogging platform early in its lifecycle helped Twitter itself break out of its niche. If Martha can bake, sew, garden, host a TV show, run a media empire and post multiple tweets a day, then so can the rest of us.

Made for Teams

Sport Marketing 2.0’s sports-centric vidcast, “The Row Show” talked about HootSuite while lounging on couches with laptops/iPads and coffee. After a smattering of interesting tech industry news, they give a comprehensive overview of features of the HootSuite’s web and mobile versions including real-world scenarios about how to utilize the tools with your team – for sports, biz or what have you. They even give a shout-out for the webinars. Thanks guys!

“Essential” Says Mashable

We’re always pleased when the uber-useful blog Mashable mentions us. This time Christina Warren includes HootSuite in a list of 10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers:

HootSuite is a great tool not only for managing multiple Twitter accounts (or allowing multiple users access to an account), but also for managing multiple social networks. In November, HootSuite introduced support for LinkedIn and Facebook. HootSuite also now supports WordPress blogs, which works great if you want to have a way to schedule posts and messages to multiple networks. HootSuite also supports alerts and stats tracking. HootSuite is free.

Charted Up

Jamie Beckland wrote a comprehensive review of Twitter tools for businesses in The Four Best Social Media Management Platforms for Corporate Marketers. He compares HootSuite alongside CoTweet, SocialOomph and Spredfast. Under the “good” column, he mentions HootSuite’s “Great team permissions; stream views” and points out it’s best-suited for “cross-departmental teams” in his CC-licensed chart.

Top 10 Robots

Another HootSuite for Android review worth noting comes from Drew Alam of Top10.com in the aptly-named Top 10 Android apps of the year so far, ergo:

Hootsuite is a robust Twitter client for professional users. It allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts, schedule tweets in advance and track statistics to measure the success of your tweets.

One of the unique features of this app is that you can create custom streams for specific tags and searches, which will display tweets matching those keywords – making keeping track of important topics a breeze.

Evolving URL Tools

Evolutionary Designs adds their thoughts in Hootsuite Adds New URL Shortener Options:

Although I haven’t had much time to test this new feature, I will be testing this overt he next few days to see if Ow.ly works better and I get more clicks using it now that they removed the social bar from it.

That’ll do for this News Round-up but more in the queue to share in between announcements of the new feature releases and tips and tricks for making the most of HootSuite. Need more HootSuite news? Consider following social bookmarks via Delicious.com/HootSuite and/or @hootwatch.

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Changes and Choices

The news is out n’ about the changes to HootSuite’s built-in URL shorteners ~the lightweight Ow.ly and the feature-laden Ht.ly.

All the details are in the post: Ow.ly and Ht.ly ~ Choose Bar or Non-bar URL Shortener for HootSuite but for the keeners, here’s some reaction and amplification from the around the web:

Venture Beat – Hootsuite simplifies Ow.ly URL shortener, plans vanity shorteners – April 27, 2010 | Camille Ricketts – also appeared in New York Times under the same title

In addition to URL shortening, HootSuite offers tools to help you track conversations online across multiple social media platforms. You can, for instance, continually search for keywords on Twitter, and you can create lists of Twitter members you want to follow. This functionality is also offered for Facebook, LinkedIn, and the slew of other networks people, particularly companies, want to keep an eye on.

Sarah Vela – Dear HootSuite, I Love You – April 27, 2010 | Sarah Vela

I swear to Thor that HootSuite was eavesdropping on my brain last night. The title of the original draft of this post was “Dear HootSuite, I Love You, Please Change” – but an email arrived this morning that changed all that.

All Business – Customers Buy When You Provide Fewer Choices – April 27, 2010 | Lori Richardson

It went on to talk about new features of their social media platform, HootSuite – which is a professional Twitter client. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, and measure success. I also learned more about URL shorteners – which I use but don’t think about. No one did, until social media, especially Twitter took off. After reading this particular email I felt it was useful information – unlike much of the noise out there.

BlackWeb 2.0 – Hootsuite Provides Bar and Non-bar URL Shortener Options – April 27, 2010 | rahsheen

This is a pretty significant development for Hootsuite and their URL shortening service. It’s also something that Bit.ly should be paying attention to. As a Hootsuite user, I have still avoided the ow.ly shortener and used Bit.ly because of the stigma attached to framed links (they get on my nerves). With the option to get rid of the toolbar entirely, I will probably start using ow.ly over bit.ly. In addition, the stats interface provided by Hootsuite is just a bit nicer to look at.

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Vanilla or Chocolate? Bar or No bar?

Choice is good in just about any situation, and like ice cream, one flavor doesn’t fit everyone on the web. With a desire for choice in mind, HootSuite users can now choose between two flavors of links — one with a social bar and one without.

In this character-limited web, URL shorteners are of great importance — for statistics, for branding, or simply for convenience. Ow.ly is used to shrink hundreds of thousands of links daily by users seeking clickthrough statistics and the one-click convenience of shrinking a link in HootSuite.

Two to Choose

The links were/are presented with an opt-out “social bar” which provided options to retweet, share with more networks, add a rating, search Twitter, view other popular ow.ly links, and more.

However, not everyone needs all the extras, so now you have a choice: Ow.ly or Ht.ly (pronounced “hoot-ly”).

So, next time you login to HootSuite, you can choose which shortener you prefer — Ow.ly, which from today onward will have no social bar, or Ht.ly, which will have the social bar.

Whichever link shrinker you choose will become your default for all links you shorten in HootSuite, including links created with the one-click Hootlet tool.

Full Loaded Ht.ly

Ht.ly includes the social bar — a favorite tool of many marketing-minded HootSuite users who enjoy the benefits of amplifying their messages across networks. On-board tools include easy Re-Tweets, instant links ratings, and quick access to submit links to Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Facebook, etc. to increase measurable reach. Plus, the social bar includes a handy Twitter search box to help users continue exploring. The social bar has an opt-out close box as well, so the end-user has a choice to forego the social bar if they wish.

Example of a link shortened with Ht.ly - note the Social Bar

Lightweight Ow.ly

Ow.ly is the choice if you just need the basics — a short link and clickthrough stats — no marketing tools, simply a fully redirected URL without a frame.

Example of a link shortened with Ow.ly - note fully-redirected URL w/o frame

Custom Link Shrinker

Up next, HootSuite will be adding the Ow.ly/Pro service to provide custom URL shorteners for businesses who purchase “vanity” URLs. Signup to be among the first to know about Ow.ly Pro.

These URLs can reflect company branding through creative domain names like many major web brands. For example, Twitter recently announced the addition of a custom URL shortener twt.tl, Google also uses a custom goo.gl (from Greenland) which also creates QR codes, Wordpress uses wp.me, and Facebook uses fb.me (.me URLS are from Montenegro).

The URL shortening trend has created an interesting business opportunity for domain name providers who market the two-character codes from far-flung countries — examples: .im Isle of Mann, .tv Tuvalu, .fm Federated States of Micronesia, and .ly Libya — to companies seeking memorable and short branded domain names.

Fast, Reliable & Safe

Ow.ly is among the top 5 most used URL shorteners on the web and rated as a top performer. Technology industry news source, TechCrunch, in a study with Pingdom.com, rated Ow.ly as top choice of URL shorteners:

“When both the reliability and speed rankings are combined, ow.ly and bit.ly tie for first place overall …”

Research bureau Watchmouse keeps real-time status charts for popular URL shorteners and verifies Ow.ly’s performance as well as worldwide usage trends.

Further, both Ow.ly and Ht.ly check links against Google’s Safe Browsing blacklist to thwart phishing and Malware attacks.

Sprinkles on Top

Both options continue to provide deep click-through statistics, including regional breakdown, custom date ranges, and bot/spider filtering. Both URL shorteners also let you export reports and add custom URL parameters for even deeper analysis.

Also note that using the social bar with Ht.ly doesn’t impact your site’s SEO because Google and other other search spiders are passed straight through for indexing and ranking.

So which URL Shortener is right for you? Log in and choose — you can always change your mind later in Settings.

Media Resources

Press Release
Media Kit

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As part of their mission of “Uniting the Tech Community,” online tech news source Techvibes partnered up with Carlson Media for a series of one-on-one interviews with leaders in the Vancouver tech community hosted by Victoria Revay – spokeswoman for many fine companies.

The video came at a great time in which the “incubating company” Invoke Media was launching HootSuite & ow.ly into an orbit of it’s own.

“Up in this second episode is Ryan Holmes of Vancouver’s Invoke Media. Invoke is an interactive agency that has been in the news of late after spinning off it’s HootSuite social media dashboard and raising $1.9 Million from outside investors.”

Watch the TechProfile: Ryan Holmes of Invoke Media and HootSuite and jump in with your comments about Ryan’s remarks.

TechProfiles: Invoke Media from Justin Carlson on Vimeo.

hootsuite news business, CEO, HootSuite, interview, Invoke, ow.ly, ryan holmes, techvibes

Ow.ly update — Now with fewer bots and less spam

The busy times keep rolling with some powerful improvements to click-tracking with Ow.ly – our URL shortening, social sharing and tracking tool.

Problem Bots Thwarted

Twitter is constantly crawled by bots and spiders hungry for new links to follow. We’ve tried to filter these bots out in the past, but they can be sneaky little guys, and some were slipping through our filters. Due to these web-crawlers, some HootSuite users may have noticed inflated click stats over the past few months.

Stats Adjusted

But no longer! With our recent updates to ow.ly, we’re able to filter bots and spiders with greater accuracy. The end result? More precise analytics and stats for our users, so you can measure your influence and reach with a greater degree of confidence.

Because of these important updates, you may see a drop in your reported clickthrough stats. This is normal — what you’re seeing is the fake clicks being swept away from your reports.

Links Protected

While we were at it, we’ve added some important security features to help combat phishing scams and malware.

Every ow.ly URL is now checked against Google’s Safe Browsing database of known malware and phishing URLs. If you click on a malicious ow.ly link, you’ll now see a warning page letting you know that the site may be hazardous to your computer’s health.

Question Period

Note: We always look forward to hearing from you but this blog post is not the channel for support requests – instead, kindly enter your questions, concerns and ideas at HootSuite Support on Get Satisfaction for response plus follow @hootsuite_help for a stream of knowledge.

Learn more about ow.ly’s features and benefits at: Introducing! Ow.ly Social Bar 2.0. Because Sharing is Caring.

Recap

Ow.ly is now safer, faster, and features more reliable statistics. Enjoy the updates! And find help if needed.

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HootSuite will be updated this evening. The new release includes some new features, and improvements upon the issues reported by some users.

(Please note that the site may be down from 10pm to 12am PST. Fear not! Your prescheduled tweets will still go out during this time.)

New features:

1) Home and @Reply tabs will show “in reply to” links that let you see the tweet being responded to.

2) We’ve added text to the RSS feed settings page to help clarify whether a feed is paused or “feeding.”

3) On the search page, any search you make is automatically saved — no more extra clicks to save your favorite searches to HootSuite!

Improvements:

1) We’ve enhanced our server so using ow.ly should become more efficient and faster.

2) We’ve updated RSS feeds. This should eliminate the problems some have experienced and keep things running smoothly.

3) We’ve updated our click tracker to do a better job of filtering out bot and spiders from your clickthrough stats. This may have the side effect of making your previous stats suddenly shrink as we remove known bots from the database.

4) Clicking on @username within a tweet will now show you recent tweets from that user, rather than starting an @reply tweet.

5) We’ve made mouse-overs on Home/@Reply/DM page more consistent.

6) We’ve solved some of those pesky IE6 bugs.

Thanks for your feedback, everyone.

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