I am sure that you are aware, but Twitter only lets you use 140 Characters to send out updates.
So if you have a URL of the website or blog posting that you want to link to, and it is say http://www.markshaw.biz/retailers-want-more-revenue-can-twitter-help/- that is a whopping 69 characters.
You wont then have much room left for any text.. That is why you must use some sort of URL shortening service. All the services are usually Free. There are loads to choose from, and I am certainly not going to talk about all of them.. I will simply highlight two that I use.
By using TinyURL.Com, the website link -http://www.markshaw.biz/retailers-want-more-revenue-can-twitter-help/ was reduced to http://tinyurl.com/l4jnj7 - which is only 26 characters.
With http://bit.ly, you can set up a free account, and attach your Twitter details to that account. Bit.ly offers a lot more in terms of tracking of the shortened links that are generated.
You can watch in real time as people click on the links, and graphs and stats are generated on the results.
So my original link of – http://www.markshaw.biz/retailers-want-more-revenue-can-twitter-help/ is now shortened to http://bit.ly/e07aY- which is only 20 characters.
Is there any other way of Shortening a URL?
Yes.. I use a 3rd party application called Tweetdeck. This free application allows me to run my whole Twitter account. I can post updates, filter, search, group people, and it also has a built in URL shortener
