Size Matters: Why Short Links Are Better
Size does matter when it comes to links in your social media posts, and in this case bigger is not better.
Long links full of random characters look messy, waste space and make people wonder where they will end up. A short link looks professional and, if you set it up properly, tells you exactly how many people clicked and where they came from.
Why shorten links at all?
- Space. On X, every character counts, and links in captions elsewhere look cleaner when they are short.
- Trust. A branded short domain tells readers the link really comes from you.
- Data. Most shorteners show clicks over time, locations and referring platforms.
Popular options
Bitly is one of the best-known shorteners, with click statistics and custom branded domains on paid plans. Ow.ly is built into Hootsuite's scheduling tools, so links shortened there appear in the same reports as your posts. Some services from the early days of social media have since closed, including Google's goo.gl shortener and StumbleUpon's su.pr, which is a good reason to use a branded domain you control: if a service shuts down, your links can be pointed somewhere else.
Add UTM tags before you shorten
Short links count clicks; UTM parameters tell your website analytics what happened after the click. Add
utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to the full address, then shorten it.
You will see which platform, post and campaign brought visitors who actually bought, booked or signed up.
| Source | |
|---|---|
| Medium | social |
| Campaign | spring-sale |
This matters for every brand that sells online, and especially for affiliate marketers and gaming operators who pay partners per sign-up: clean, tagged links are how each partner's results are counted fairly.