Did you ever stop to think what the ‘link’ is all about?

By Tony Kirsch
Head of Professional Services, Neustar

From as far back as the 1400s, marketing has existed with three simple objectives; 

1. to inform consumers about products and services they may want or need;
2. to brand that experience in order to build loyalty or recall; and
3. to prompt customers to take action.

And despite a myriad of technical innovations over that time, the game remains pretty much the same. But things do change.

Innovations evolve from raw, often simplistic initial forms into something far more elegant as utilization spreads and they benefit from continual refinement and learning. This is the core of progress. To question the existing and follow the potential of finding a better way.

This leads me to the URL shortener, or the ‘link.’ A tool built from necessity in a social digital world. A tool that until recently, no-one stopped to ask ‘what the hell are we doing?’

In addition to keeping the number of characters down so you can share more of your genius, one of the additional benefits of using a URL shortener platform is that it can often provide you with great insights into how your posts are being shared, clicked and are otherwise performing. 

Options aplenty

Sure, there are lots of options to shorten your URLs – from free services through to more advanced and expensive analytical providers. And if you think about it, you’ve seen them everywhere.

Market leader Bitly (who noticeably rebranded themselves away from bit.ly in recent times) shortens upwards of 400 million links a month which is a staggering number in itself.

Others are infused in your daily social feeds – from bit.ly to goo.gl to ow.ly. And we never blink an eyelid.

But despite this clear insight from the organization who really has the data to make such a statement, a large proportion of brands – some of whom really ought to know better – still use generic links in social media. 

Time to get real

The .brand juice flowing through my veins was starting to pulse as this all started to formulate in my head. We’ve been teaching all of our customers to use their .brand to get people to the content they want through simple and powerful URLs.

So what really is the difference between a social media link and a link we may use in a TV campaign? Are we constrained by slightly archaic mindsets and could our .brand approach work across traditional and social media platforms?

Looking at the BrandFinance Global 500 brands, 142 of those applied for their own .brand TLD but a staggering half of those .brand owners are using a generic URL shortener or no shortener at all.

Something’s wrong with this picture. Could this be an opportunity to not only see .brand usage increase, but start the process of meaningful link development?

A new way of branding links

For organizations with a .brand, there now exists a better way to approach social links. The ability to create something short, with your recognizable brand to the right of the dot, means the best of both worlds – custom links, control of data and an accurate representation of your brand in every post.

In fact, this can be one of the simplest ways to get started with a .brand domain as we’ve noticed with organizations such as HSBC, Philips and our good selves at Neustar.

But even then, not all customized links are created equal. It’s all well and good to include your brand in your links, but what about that randomly-generated text after the slash?

Think about it, what looks better:

i.neustar/3nsdD7
or i.neustar/socialblog

This part of your link gives people a preview of what to expect. If your brand comes after the dot, the text after the slash gives you the chance to feature a product, service, promotion, content piece and so on, so people know exactly where they’re going when they click.

Which of the options above is likely to get more clicks?

Highly-available tools allow you to easily set up branded link shorteners with the freedom to also customize the extension – and for many of them it’s a free service. It’s almost too simple, and is out there waiting and available for any brand to take advantage of.

GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business as of August 3, 2020.