So, you’ve got yourself a Twitter account, you have figured out what you need to be Tweeting about and you are doing it. Everything feels good.

But as a marketer you want something more tangible than just a feeling. What about clickthrough? If you know the number of clicks that each of your Tweets generates, you can figure out what your people really value – and do more of it!

Using Bit.ly URL shortener to measure clickthrough rates

A URL shortener (like tiny.cc, bit.ly, tinyurl, goo.gl, et al) turns a long URL into a short link so that it only takes up a few characters in your Tweet and lets you track link stats. My favourite URL shortener with link tracking is Bit.ly.

When you use Bit.ly you can…

  • Watch the link stats of your Tweets in real time
  • See in real time who else is talking about your Tweet page on Twitter, FriendFeed and in blog comments
  • Use the browser plugin / extension to create a Tweet without leaving the web page you are on

You can check out their product tour here and sign up for free.

Now you have Bit.ly you can not only feel good about your Tweeting – but prove it too by monitoring the clickthrough rates of your Tweets!

I’ll let you know how many people clicked on this link later 😉