Productivity Tools

5 Best URL Shorteners for Social Media Marketing

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Social media marketing is a highly important activity in today’s business world. You can reach millions of potential customers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more! As such, businesses that compress URLs for marketing should use social media as a distribution channel for their links. 

It is important, then, to find a web link shortener optimized for social media marketing and link sharing. Let’s go over the best social media link shorteners and the features they include to maximize social media success.

a woman using a laptop with link icons coming up off of it

Bitly’s well-regarded URL shortener includes several features optimized for social media marketing. On Bitly, you can share both links and QR codes on social media. You can optimize your Bitly links for both desktop and mobile use, thus making them easier to share on social media apps.

In fact, Bitly directly integrates with social media management platforms like Adobe Social and AgoraPulse. With these integrations, you can set up link marketing as part of your larger social media strategy and automatically shorten any links shared on social media with Bitly. Finally, Bitly lets you track who clicks on your links and records which channel they reached your link on. This way you can track which social media platforms your links perform best on.

Bitly pricing begins at $29/month for 1 user seat and 1 custom domain. Businesses that need multiple seats, custom domains, and branded links should contact Bitly for custom enterprise pricing.

ow.ly via hootsuite logo

Ow.ly is Hootsuite’s URL shortener and link sharing platform. As Hootsuite is the most popular social media management platform on the market, it should be no surprise that Ow.ly is optimized for social media sharing. Like Bitly, the Ow.ly URL shortener can track your links’ traffic along a variety of metrics including traffic channel and device. Additionally, Ow.ly’s social media link shortener can measure your social ROI (return on investment) for each link or campaign. Ow.ly is a great way to integrate short links into your larger social media marketing strategy. And since Ow.ly is accessed from within Hootsuite, you can schedule or post links to multiple social media accounts at once all from the Hootsuite platform. Ultimately, Ow.ly is among the best link shorteners for Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.

Ow.ly link shortener can be used on both Hootsuite’s free and paid plans. However, if you need branded URLs, ROI reporting, and multiple users on one account, you will need to choose a paid plan. These range from team plans for 3 users starting at $129/month to custom enterprise plans. If you’re wondering how to use Ow.ly in Hootsuite, you can now access the link shortener directly from your Hootsuite dashboard.

3. Sniply – For advertisers that use CTAs in their social media campaigns.

gif of website templates using sniply

Sniply provides a tiny link creator with a twist: every link you share comes with a call-to-action attached to it. This way, you can advertise your website on every link you share. Sniply’s link shortener tracks the effectiveness of both your links and CTAs, so you can track the social ROI on each of your campaigns. Additionally, if you download Sniply’s browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, you can integrate it directly with Hootsuite, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more! This lets you create sniply links and CTAs from within your favorite social media platform, making Sniply another best link shortener for Facebook and LinkedIn.

Sniply pricing begins at $29/mo for individual users up to $299/mo for business with 10+ marketers. There is no Sniply free account, though you can try out a free trial for 14 days. All plans come with basic CTAs and unlimited short links, though higher-priced plans are necessary to add A/B testing and custom branding to your links and CTAs.  Comparing Sniply vs Bitly, this is quite a bargain!

4. Rebrandly – For businesses that use multiple domain names and social media platforms.

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Rebrandly’s Social Share feature lets you shrink links specifically for different social media platforms, from Twitter to LinkedIn to SMS. Then, you can track these links with Rebrandly’s analytics and analyze how they perform on different platforms and devices. Rebrandly also integrates with several social media sharing platforms such as MeetEdgar and Postcron. Schedule your social media posts and include Rebrandly links on each one so you never stop providing your followers with new content.

Rebrandly provides the best free account of the social media link shorteners on this list. You can access all integrations, analytics, and QR code links and create up to 5 custom domains for free! For more tracked links, custom domains, and additional features, you can sign up for an individual or team account, ranging from $29/month to custom enterprise pricing.

5. Droplr: For Enterprises that need robust security.

droplr logo with two chat bubbles next to it

Droplr is a unique app in that it includes a URL shortener alongside a screenshot and screen recording tool. You can use Droplr to share short links and annotated screen captures with anyone! Droplr generates a unique short link for every screenshot or screen recording you take that you can paste into your social media platform. Short links will preview in social media and on platforms like Slack and Discord. You can expand your social media marketing to include screen captures with Droplr. Droplr pricing begins at $6/user/mo.

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Using URL shorteners, you can link potential customers with your content. Learn more about the best link shorteners for enterprises, link tracking, custom branding, and security.

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