A couple of years ago Bit.ly started offering the ability to customize the way shortened URLs look. These custom short urls enabled social media users to limit the length of their links without losing the brand identity of their company.  For example, shortened Youtube links now appear as Youtu.be and shortened New York Times links appear as nyti.ms. HubSpot's cofounder Dharmesh Shah even uses the custom short domain dharme.sh to share links on Social Media.

We're pleased to announce that HubSpot customers can now use their custom shortened urls within HubSpot Social Media and with our Tracking URL Builder. If you have a custom URL created in bit.ly, it's quick and easy make sure it gets used in HubSpot Social Media.  Simply go to social media settings and, under account settings, add your bit.ly account. Connecting bit.ly to HubSpot will ensure that your custom short link appears in all of your social media shares.

Here are a few reasons why a custom short url might make sense for your company:

  • Brand Consistency: If brand recognition is important to your company, a shortened url is one more place you can underscore your company name. 
  • Increase familiarity: While there's no hard research on the matter, it's reasonable to think that some people may feel more comfortable clicking on a link if they recognize the name of the company within it. 
  • PPC Tracking: These custom urls will enable you to keep your branding while using tracking codes for PPC and other campaigns
  • Bit.ly Integration:  If you are a Bit.ly poweruser you'll enjoy that your shortened URLs will be visable within both Bit.ly and HubSpot.
 
If you're a HubSpot customer who already has a custom short url set up, you can get started right away by following this short guide.  Otherwise, you can learn about setting up a custom short url over on bit.ly.  
 
Happy shortening!
 
HubSpot

Originally published Dec 21, 2012 10:53:00 AM, updated January 17 2023

Topics:

Social Media