I love stats, I really like to take them apart to see what did what and what didn’t. I also love twitter.
Now, if you can put stats and twitter together then I’m drooling.
Here’s 6 ways I have found to track the links that I post on Twitter.
Install Get-Shorty
Getshorty is a beta script available that allows you to install your own personal tiny url service to your server. It allows you to use keywords as part of the url or let it automatically create one for you.
Site: Get-shorty
Create your own URL shortener with WP 2.7
This is an excellent way to completely control how your links look and where they point to. It takes a little work and some template changes but combine it with some decent stats tracking and you will have a full service all to yourself!
More info: Business Mind Hacks
Google Analytics
If you have Google Analytics on your page you can add some variables to the end of the your URL so google can store some extra information about the visitor.
Example:
http://www.you.com/?utm_campaign=promotion&utm_source=twitter&tm_medium=social
You will still need to use a URL shortener such as tinyurl or one of the others that don’t provide tracking services.
More info: Epikone
Use Tweetburner
You can use tweetburner to shorten a url for you and track how it performs over time. The advantage of this is that the twurl.nl links are integrated into desktop programs such as twhirl and tweetdeck.
Site: Tweetburner
Use Budurl
This is another URL shortening service with added support for link tracking. Their dashboard for tracking your links is quite extensive and a dream for stats geeks.
site: Budurl
Use bit.ly
This is my favourite URL shortener service. It’s integrated with tweetdeck and the stats page is very useful. You can even watch results in real time as people click your links. You can look at the stats on any bit.ly link by entering it into the search box or if you register and provide your twitter username, you can bring up all the bit.ly links you have used in your tweets and see how many clicks have happened over time.
Site: bit.ly
(you can see the results of this post being retweeted by @styletime on this link here)
You don’t have to have twitter to use these tools, they’ll work perfectly well for affiliate links and flyer links. I’d recommend going with the self hosted option if you post a lot of links on forums or other places where they stay a long time so you can be sure they wont expire or if you need to update where it points to.
Twitter: psychicgeek
The only time I check any stats these days is to scoop up some search terms for a post.
witchypoo´s last blog post..GIST6
Twitter: lottomad
Seruously, I don’t get Twitter at all. Can someone educate me and let me know why its soo good. It’s just a big status update isn’t it?
dave t´s last blog post..E-lottery Espanol Super Syndicateas
wtichypoo: I love stats. I really lurve them.
Dave: It’s a status update and also a continuous roll of information. if you follow a lot of web designers and coders like I do then you would see a constant stream of new and interesting articles and sites linked in peoples tweets. if you just follow random people you end up with a stream of random tweets so you have to be selective of the people you follow.
Andy Bailey´s last blog post..how to change your js-kit colour scheme for blogger CommentLuv
May i suggest another way?
http://www.clickmeter.com allows you to short your URLs and Track the Clicks ad the other services, but you can also personalize the domain and tag the link choosing the name of the directory.
No code to write in your website or software to instal on your server.
here is a n example: http://www.go.9nl.com/a
This is just what I need for when I twitter again, thanks!
Dennis Edell´s last blog post..Top Commenter Contests – Officially Speaking…
Davide: thanks for the link!
Dennis: you’ll be surprised by how quickly a link can pass around the twitterverse once it gets a retweet or two.
Andy Bailey´s last blog post..how to change your js-kit colour scheme for blogger CommentLuv
Twitter: lottomad
Well Andy, Tristan has finally talked me into getting on Twitter, so I am know following you. And at the weekend will actually try and look at it properly. Find some people to follow, who write on stuff I am interested in. Anyway fella take it easy.
davet´s last blog post..elottery
davet: search for some twitter tips, 10 things to do when you start twitter etc, try not to follow a gazillion people straight away and make sure you put up an avatar and bio description that isn’t a pitch for your site and you’ll be fine!
Andy Bailey´s last blog post..how to change your js-kit colour scheme for blogger CommentLuv
Awesome Google Analytics info! I’ve been wondering how to get more out of that.
Rob O.´s last blog post..The Emerald Isle Gets Even Greener
Those are some great info. I have been getting alot of traffic from Twitter but was not sure of a tool that would give me better stats that I have. Thanks
Bill Ross´s last blog post..What is a biz website?
Great post. Love the information you are providing. Thanks for the wordpress plugin.
ArticleEDU´s last blog post..Physical activity of children ages 6-8: the beginning of school attendance.(Report)
Hey i just joined twitter, I look forward to adding you.
o and i needed this.
Thanks
Shawn´s last blog post..Sfv intro
Andy, thanks again for the mention of my WordPress-based redirection/shortener solution. I just got finished with a follow-up post that goes into the findings of my experiment, and reasons why you may want to go that route:
http://3on.us/why-diy-tinyurl
Cheers!
Alex Schleber´s last blog post..10 Reasons To “Roll Your Own” TinyURL Using WordPress
thx for the tips…. its very useful for me…
herry´s last blog post..Menurut Anda Sms Broadcast / Sms Promosi Menguntungkan Atau Merugikan ?
wow this is very useful for me…
herry´s last blog post..Membangun Hubungan Orang Tua Murid Dan Pihak Sekolah Melalui SMS
Nice stuff
thanks!
A_Flama´s last blog post..Visual Potluck
Hi, I use the birdfeeder plug. Works great and auto shortens the URL.
PS. I get this in the commentluv box “XML error: Invalid document end at line 1, column 1″ is a problem on my end?
Jack Clarke
I’m going to try the get-shorty plugin. I am currently using google analytics, and as a beginner, I’m still confused about it. It be nice if you can find time to add more links.
Kai Lo´s last blog post..Google Pagerank 0
Follow Clickmeter on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/clickmeter
nice tips bro… i think i will try this tips
herry´s last blog post..Tingkatkan Kemampuan Membaca Anak Dengan SMS
Tracking one’s link clicks on Twitter is a good idea to me, but the process involved in setting this up might seem “too technical” for non-programmers to catch up.
thank you for sharing an idea through this post is very helpful to me I am a new blogger that’s why I am searching some tips and post that can give me some knowledge in Search Engine Optimization and I Appreciate this one.
Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009´s last blog post..Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 Last Phase
Google analytics is the best one and most reliable. It gives you lots of other fruit full reports on the same time when you will track your click. It is always better if you can get all report at the same place in a very simple manner and Google analytics is here for this.
Great tips. I have been using tr.im and bit.ly to track url’s. I prefer tr.im because that is what I ‘grew up on’
The click meter looks really sweet – maybe more powerful.
Loved this article it gave some options I had not heard of – thanks.
Pingback: Twitted by stnmoon
Pingback: Twitted by Eco_Feed
This is soo yoosful! Why are there so few good people like you Mr. Andy Bailey!
DebtBusters911CreditRepair.com´s last blog post..Debt Reduction – how to handle your own personal crisis!
What about adf.ly?
Those are some great techniques. We have been trying to figure it out since we syndicate to Twitter alot. Thanks for the great advice
Answerblip´s last blog post..Who wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
Twitter: lottomad
Stats arghhh
Big problem with stats at the moment, well servers in general, mine keeps exploding (server) and the server company blames traffic, but it was low yesterday and still crashed.
I don’t understand it, I used to use Statpress on my blog, but the tables were too big. Hmmmm
Stats love them and hate them.
DaveT´s last blog post..Thunderball lottery results Wednesday 27th May 2009 (27/05/09)
Nice tips, this will definitely make Twitter more valuable to me now! I don’t have yet full hand of it as I’m still using it as a “feed” extension somehow, so any tip I can get to leverage on it is welcome!
Nicolas Prudhon´s last blog post..Are You Getting Stuck With The Devalued Links Exchange?
test holly comment
[rq=3042,0,blog][/rq]Swimsuit Season? Bring It!