Unleash the Power of the Link

Have you ever clicked a URL in an email message and it didn't go anywhere? It often happens if the URL is long enough to wrap to a second line, causing the link to not work the way the sender intended. Long links can be a hassle, and that is why we have URL shorteners. We used to recommend tinyurl.com, and, although it is still a viable tool, we have since built a strong preference for bit.ly.

Bit.ly has a better feature set, including the ability to organize "bitmarks" you create into "bundles" you can custom create. Of course, that functionality requires you to create an account (as if you need one more username and password to keep track of…), but once you start using it, you may find yourself wondering how you got this far in life without it.

You might like the fact that you can see a stats page for any bitl.ly page by adding a "+" to the tail end. Take a look at the stats page for the LBCC Employment Opportunities page we receive each week from HR. Kinda cool, huh? And then you will discover they have an app for iPhone and Android smartphones…

How can you get started using bit.ly? Well, when you have a link to share via email, consider making a bit.ly link for it:

Paste your long URL in the field at the top of the page:

When you do that, you get a popup dialog:

You can customize the name of the link, and even the URL itself (like the EOS page above: http://bit.ly/lbcc-eos). Be sure to use the bundles feature to get and stay organized!

The cool way to share a link in an email message is to make a word or words the link itself, instead of just pasting it into the body of your email message:

There are a few other features you may enjoy, but I'd bet this will give you enough to go on for now.