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Summary for incredibly impatient: Use BudUrl service to shrink URLs and you can track it adding /s to end.

http://budurl.com/qlhu/s

As web addresses continue to get longer and longer it is important to shrink / shorten URLs before sharing them on various social media type sites. That being said it’s also important to track the clicks if you can.

http://www.tinyurl.com

The above is arguably the most popular URL shortening service. There are so many shortening services that I won’t even attempt to list them all. Tiny URL allows you to shorten a URL so it’s easy to share; nothing less nothing more.

http://www.budurl.com

BudUrl is very similar to Tiny Url in regards to shrinking / shortening a longer URL to make it easier to share. There is one additional feature of particular interest; you can track the clicks it receives!

Shrunk URL:

http://budurl.com/qlhu

Shrunk URL Stats:

http://budurl.com/qlhu/s

Let’s say the url made is http://budurl.com/qlhu. If you add a /s to the end it will show you the number of clicks the shortened url has received. This is extremely valuable to know if your efforts in different spheres are paying off or not. Shrink URLs often on social media sites so you can save characters and track the response.

Keep working for yourself,

Rob

If you’re involved in Twitter to any extent I’m sure you’ve heard of “Twitter Grader” before. It’s a website that grades your twitter profile on several factors. These factors include but are not limited to: Number of followers, power of their network, pace of your tweets etc… It calculates a score for you as a percentile of total users. If you score an 85 it means your account is more “powerful” then 85% of the other accounts in the database. Cool idea but how accurate a depiction is this?

Granted statistically it makes sense that if your friends have access to many other friends the potential for any message you send to go viral increases. No argument there based on logic. However life doesn’t necessary work that way… Seriously now who do YOU think is more likely to be interested enough to read and retweet YOUR latest blog post? A friend who reads your blog and/or writes a similar one or a popular media type who just broadcasts occasionally? A follow from one of them would send your grader score into orbit but would it likely have any effect on traffic?

In my journey through Twitter I’ve noticed that most of the heavily followed members rarely retweet anything compared to others. Typically THEY post something and some/many of their friends / followers do the retweeting for them. This again could be based purely on the statistics that there are more people with less a following then there are with large ones. I can’t dispute that.

However if there are more people with less followers who retweet more often wouldn’t those be the people you’d like in your network? Sure they won’t increase your “score” but they will probably help you spread your message more effectively if it’s something that interests them. Isn’t that what’s important? Connecting with people and getting your message out while listening to others?

As I’m writing this I just thought of something; twitter grader is similar to page rank. Think of it as getting a link from a low PR high traffic site versus a high PR and no traffic site… Send me the traffic and contacts please! Your “score” is all about vanity (maybe that is why it’s so popular) while making friendly connections and driving targeted traffic to your website is sanity.

So what’s important to you? To have a high twitter grader score or to connect with more people who could potentially be genuinely interested in reading, subscribing and retweeting your content?

Don’t concentrate on building a theoretical reach but a probable one with mutual friends.

Keep working for yourself!

-Rob

Today we have another guest post. It’s written by BizyMoms.

When was the last time that you were given the opportunity to try a product for free? Did you like the product? Did you become regular consumer of the product after trying it? What is the purpose of giving away free samples?

Since the business environment is very competitive and volatile, almost all the firms in the market are trying their best to stay ahead of the competition. Due to this reason, they try various methods to gain the maximum market share in the shortest possible time period. Free samples can be identified as one of these methods that businesses try in order to win a higher percentage of the market share.

Now you must be wondering how this really helps to increase the sales volume of a particular business. Let me explain.

When we consider the market that exists in the modern world, it would be clear to anyone that the number of new products that enter the market on a daily basis is vast. For this reason, there is a high chance of consumers not recognizing or purchasing a product that is being introduced. This would be a major disadvantage for the company that introduced the product, especially considering their investment in research and development.

Therefore, to avoid this potential threat, giving away free samples and getting the consumers to try it would be a brilliant idea. The main aim behind this is to get the consumers to use the product. And since it is free the number of people that would actually try it might be considerable. If the product is very good and is able to gain the attention of many individuals who try it, the number of people who would actually become regular users of the product would also be very high. This would increase the sales volume of the given product in a tremendous manner. However, it is worth mentioning that the system of giving away free samples may only work with consumer goods that are regularly used and further, the number of free samples that can be given away would vary depending on availability and finances. Soap, beverages, food items and sweets are a few examples where a free sample system is normally used.

With the information given in the above sections of this article, it should be clear how free samples increase sales of a particular product. However, despite giving away free samples, other available advertising methods should also be used to maintain the competitiveness and to communicate about the product to a wider market. Including a brochure, business card or discount coupon with the free sample is always recommended.

Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that free samples do help to increase sales of particular products that are being introduced to the consumer market.

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