1.
TWITTER 310: CUSTOM URL
SHORTENING CASE STUDY
Social Media University, Global
Lee Aase, Chancellor
January 4, 2011

2.
PREREQUISITES:
Social Media 110: 7 Ways to Shrink URLs
Twitter 210: Vanity URL Shortening

3.
CUSTOM URL EXAMPLES
• YouTube - http://youtu.be/xoGQ5iv1hjU
• New York Times - http://nyti.ms/gwi7wH
• CSPAN - http://cs.pn/giXAam

4.
STEPS TO CREATING
• Get a Bit.ly Pro Account - It’s FREE
• Choose and secure custom short domain
• Get Top-Level Domain List
• Get Creative
• Buy Your Domain Name
• Add custom domain, mapping domain to your account

5.
TOP LEVEL DOMAINS
• Get a list of your TLD options
• Generic
• Countries
• Brainstorm Options - My choices were:
• leeaa.se - Sweden
• sm.ug - Uganda
• leeaase.me - Generic/International

6.
THE SWEDEN OPTION
For me, it was nice, short...and expensive

7.
UGANDA
SM.UG would have been perfect, but...

8.
LEEAASE.ME
The Economical Option - Reserved leeaase.com too

9.
ON BIT.LY
Indicate your Custom Short Domain

10.
MY FIRST CUSTOM URL
http://leeaase.me/xmasletter2010

11.
WHAT’S THE BENEFIT?
• Analytics on clicks to your domain from short links
• Users can click with confidence
• Brand impressions even when users don’t click your short link

12.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
SMUG Twitter Curriculum