Don’t Just Shorten Your URL: Understand Your Social Media Traffic Too!

Creating a shorter URL link, made increasingly popular by the micro-blogging giant Twitter, has now evolved into the next generation.   You knew it was only a matter of time, right?

The new kid on the block is Cligs, which is growing at a rapid rate, providing not just shorter URLS, but the additional features of providing you the stats of your submitted links, with analytics, social media monitoring and geotargeting capability.

The driver behind Cligs is to help you understand your traffic.  By tracking the traffic going thru your links, your online activity and the buzz it creates, whether for business or otherwise, is made transparent to you.

Why use Cligs?  Besides being FREE and user-friendly, it provides:

-    An informative Blog, regularly updated with news features and tips;

-    Real-time analytics, who’s sharing your link and who’s linking to you;

-    Geo-targeted destination URLs, to target your marketing and promotions on a per-country basis;

-    Referral statistics, to show which links sent you traffic;

-    Tools, gadgets and widgets, such as WordPress plugins;

-    Various Twitter applications, such as a short a URL partnership with “Twitblogs”, the blogging service with Twitter which automatically gets tweeted with a link to the full post;

-    Ability to create an unlimited number of cligs, pointing to the same destination from different sites for traffic tracking purposes;

-    100% search engine friendly.

Has anyone tested out Cligs yet? I would love to hear your feedback!

IVAA Live Summit - An Event Worth Attending

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at the IVAA Live Summit in Montreal on a topic near and dear to my heart: Social Media Marketing. This was my first time attending a Live Summit with IVAA and I have to say that I was SUPER impressed with the quality of speakers (especially the guy - lol), the professionalism of the event and the great networking and learning environment.

It was wonderful to meet so many talented VAs with a rich diversity of skills and specializations from transcription work and Internet Marketing, to blog design and bookkeeping.

A few months ago, I did a webinar on defining your ROI (Return on Investment) for your education and training pursuits. I talked about the importance of measuring the training programs you take based on the positive return you see for your business. Well, based on my experience with the IVAA Summit last week, I would have to say that any aspiring or experienced Virtual Assistant would greatly benefit and be inspired and encouraged from attending this yearly event! Next year is in Phoenix - sweet location!

The other thing that really impressed me was the level of support, accountability and encouragement IVAA members showed one another. This is truly a top notch organization and one that you might consider joining if you have not already. They have great education opportunities, networking and support as well as a members forum that offers great resources as well as new client opportunities.

So, check out the IVAA website to learn more about the benefits of belonging to this great organization - might be the resource you are seeking for your Virtual Assistance career!

TwitWall: When 140 Characters isn't Enough

For businesses who are utilizing Twitter’s staggering marketing potential as part of a Social Media Marketing campaign, Twitter provides a lot of room for creativity and innovative solutions for reaching target audiences.

Now that celebrities (such as Ashton Kutcher and CNN) , presidential campaigns and millions of users worldwide are accustomed to micro-blogging, Twitter is providing an enhancement to the micro-space of Tweeting.

For everyone already on Twitter, how many don’t realize they have a TwitWall? This easy to use feature is a blog companion for Twitter, allowing a space for Tweeters as an alternative, or addition to their micro-blog of maximum 140 characters. This page within Twitter allows users to embed their favorite videos and widgets, upload photos, mp3 music, podcasts, and source-images originating from existing http:// locations.

The little set-up time and effort involved is very appealing for those wanting more of a presence on Twitter, outside the context of the micro-blog. Additionally, TwitWall utilizes your existing Twitter followers that you’ve already established, with everything posted on your TwitWall updating your status on your Twitter timeline. It also carries over the personal branding design preferences of your Twitter page, such as background image, colours etc.

So why use TwitWall as a blog page rather than just your traditional blog post?

This question was posed to TwitWall founder Michael E. Carluen, who stated, “For users who currently have existing blogs, TwitWall can be a repository of content they would like to share with their Twitter network, but does not fit the general content of their main blog.”¹

As an additional blogging platform that’s unique to your followers, TwitWall provides a dynamic new communication tool, ready to be discovered!