ByWould you like to track clicks on the links in your tweets?
If you share a lot of links to articles, blog posts, landing pages and other forms of content or if driving website traffic through Twitter is one of your objectives, it’s absolutely necessary to track the clicks on the links you share in your tweets. This will help you determine what types of tweets get more clicks on the links you share and you can take similar steps in the future to craft tweets that drive more website traffic. You can learn how to track clicks on the links in your tweets below…
1. Use a good scheduling tool:
Using a scheduling tool will automatically help you see how many clicks the links are getting. A couple of good tools you could try are Buffer and Hootsuite. I have described how to use them in my post 9 Brilliant Tools to Boost Your Twitter Presence. As these tools have their own URL shorteners that shorten the URLs in your tweets, they automatically track the clicks on the links you share. After you share your links you can visit the analytics sections of the tools and see what links people are clicking on.
On Hootsuite, visit the analytics page by clicking on ‘Analytics’ which can be found on the menu on the left.
Now choose the ‘URL Click Stats – Ow.ly’ option and then choose the account and links and view how many clicks your links are getting.
On Buffer you can just choose the Twitter account first and then the ‘Analytics’ option on the top to see how many people are clicking on your links.
2. Use Bitly:
Another option would be to manually shorten your links with Bitly and then track who is clicking on them by browsing through your Bitly account. This tool can give you very accurate results.
Also, having a Bitly shortened link in your Tweets can have more positive results as Tweets with Bitly shortened URLs receive the highest number of retweets. Another benefit of Bitly is that it shows you where the people clicking on the links are based.
So the next time you share a tweet, instead of just going with the shortened URL that automatically appears, you can use Bitly and shorten your URL.
It’s very easy to shorten your URL with Bitly. Just create an account and then in the top right corner (in the field) where it says ‘Paste Link Here’, copy and paste your link or type it down, whichever you prefer, and your link will be shortened.
You can then copy the shortened URL and add it to your tweets. Whenever you would like to, you can visit your Bitly accounts and check the clicks on the links.
3. Connect Bitly and Buffer:
You don’t have to go through the trouble of shortening your URLs with Bitly manually each and every time if you have a Buffer account. As you can connect your Buffer account with your Bitly account and then choose the option to shorten your URLs with Bitly.
To connect your Bitly account with your Buffer account visit the ‘Link Shortening’ page which can be found under settings.
You can then connect your account by clicking on the green ‘Connect Bit.ly’ button and then choose the option to shorten your URLs with Bitly by clicking the ‘Use’ button next to where it says ‘bit.ly’.
After you perform these steps any tweets with links you share through Buffer will automatically be shortened with Bitly. You will then be able to view how many people are clicking on those links on both, your Buffer and Bitly accounts.
You can use these methods to also track the links you share on other networks like Facebook, Linkedin and Google+. I have written about how you can use Hootsuite and Buffer for Facebook in my post 3 Time Saving Tools to Help Manage Your Facebook Page.
Use the above tips to track the clicks on the links on your tweets, but don’t stop there. Regularly analyze your tweets and check which types of tweets are getting the highest clicks. Factors like the topic, length, time, etc. should be considered while analysing your tweets. You can then use the results to create tweets with links that get a high number of clicks.
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How do you track clicks on the links in your tweets? Have you got any tips you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments below.
