With more than 900 million global members, LinkedIn is a professionally oriented social network with an absolutely massive market presence. It’s far from the largest social network, but in the business world, it’s the undisputed heavyweight champion.
Engagement is key on LinkedIn. That’s true whether you’re an individual in the job market or someone representing a business seeking to reach customers or prospective hires on the platform.
There are all sorts of strategies for growing your LinkedIn audience or increasing engagement. Today we’re focusing on just one strategy: using shortened links.
What is a LinkedIn link shortener?
A LinkedIn URL-shortening service like Bitly takes your “regular” URLs (which are often long, unclear, and even confusing) and replaces them with shorter, more recognizable ones.
If a service can do this with LinkedIn links, it qualifies as a LinkedIn link shortener.
LinkedIn has its own limited native link-shortening service that allows you to customize and potentially shorten your public profile URL. We’re glad to show you exactly how to change a LinkedIn URL via the “edit public profile & URL” button on LinkedIn, but be aware of the limitations: This technique can only help you create a short LinkedIn link to your profile and doesn’t deliver the benefits you get from Bitly’s URL-shortening service.
Benefits of using a LinkedIn link shortener
Using a LinkedIn link shortener is about more than just lowering character count or shortening link length. It’s about better trust, professionalism, personalization, and brand image—and, ultimately, better engagement.
Consider each of these benefits of using a LinkedIn link shortener.
(Not sure exactly how URL shortening works? Our article, URL Shortening 101, shows you the basics, plus use cases and real examples.)
Better user trust and professionalism
A shorter link that’s easy to identify (or that even looks just like your brand if you’re using branded short links) carries a higher degree of trust than a long string of seemingly random characters. It’s also far more professional.
On LinkedIn, both of these elements matter. You want to look like a professional brand and you want people to actually click your links—which happens a lot more often when people trust the link you’ve shared.
Personalize and shorten your LinkedIn profile’s URL
Which looks better to you as a URL slug:
/Kjer21894kDF or /ProTechAnalyst?
It’s not much of a competition.The same goes for /[YourBrand] or /[YourName].
When you personalize your LinkedIn profile URL, you gain the opportunity to create something professional and memorable. That’s important whether you’re a brand operating on the platform or an individual seeking a better employment situation.
A service like Bitly can also help you tidy up your profile itself, including that vital About section. Want to link out to other resources? Branded short links are easy to read, remember, and type—so they’re perfect for places that won’t let you include a proper clickable link.
Higher click-through rates
Using a shortened link typically increases click-through rates. People trust links they can recognize and tend to look negatively at long URLs spelled out in text.
For example, say you’re shopping for an Apple Pencil. You don’t like looking at
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pencil-1st-Generation-Adapter/dp/B0BJLG69QR/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_1?pd_rd_w=6X7zz&content-id=amzn1.sym.1bcf206d-941a-4dd9-9560-bdaa3c824953&pf_rd_p=1bcf206d-941a-4dd9-9560-bdaa3c824953&pf_rd_r=ANGB569BEKSDN9RRVS3Y&pd_rd_wg=oyheW&pd_rd_r=a69a120d-b69c-48a6-80df-2df0232814f9&pd_rd_i=B0BJLG69QR.
And neither do we!
Amazon will give you its own shortened link for the same item if you hunt for it: https://a.co/d/aZfbjeF is far from recognizable, but at least it’s short.
Short links are more inviting and easier to type out when not clickable. The end result? More clicks.
Looking at our own customer data, we’ve found that branded links attract up to 17% more clicks than plain ones. That’s a significant jump for minimal effort!
Improved sharing and engagement
Shorter links are more accessible for readers to click, copy, and share in their posts, which can help your content gain organic exposure. And on several social media platforms, you’re constantly fighting a max character count. Using a short URL saves valuable character space that you can use to craft a more compelling message, further growing engagement.
Robust marketing data and analytics
All the major website hosting platforms will provide you with basic analytics on where your traffic is coming from. LinkedIn isn’t going to provide that data, though, at least not freely or openly.
By using Bitly short links for your LinkedIn needs, you gain powerful analytics and marketing data on every single click. And that data is visible from your Bitly Dashboard—out of LinkedIn’s control.
The powerful marketing data and analytics that Bitly delivers are some of the standout benefits that deliver real value to brands and individuals alike, making Bitly better and more robust than LinkedIn for link shortening.
Who benefits from using a link shortener on LinkedIn?
So, who can benefit from a LinkedIn link shortener? Anyone who uses links on the site—or shares links to the site elsewhere.
- Job seekers: Share your short link far and wide. Your resume, business cards, social posts—anywhere that people who might reasonably want to know your professional history might see it. Because it’s so much shorter, it even fits in small places (like business cards or tweets).
- Audience-building professionals: If you’re growing a professional audience, using short links (on LinkedIn or off) that point to your LinkedIn content or profile is a streamlined (and analytics-infused) way to bring in those viewers.
- Brands and recruiters: You want to share links to job posts or company pages in similar places to the job seekers, only in reverse. Short links give you more real estate, cleaner lines, and more opportunities to establish your brand.
If you’re just starting with link shortening (or even if you’re a seasoned pro), follow these 7 link-shortening best practices.
How to create a shortened link with Bitly
Now that we’ve covered some of the benefits of link shortening and where it makes the most sense to use short links, let’s walk through step-by-step instructions on using Bitly as a LinkedIn URL shortener.
- First, head to Bitly.com and log in or create an account.
- Once logged in, select the Create new button on the left-hand navigation bar of your Dashboard. Alternatively, hit the letter B anywhere in the Bitly app to start creating a link.
- Paste your long URL (like your LinkedIn profile URL or the long URL for a specific LinkedIn post) into the Destination box and select Create.
- That’s it! You’ve created a shortened LinkedIn URL. The link will be automatically copied to your clipboard.
Key link metrics you can track with Bitly
Bitly does more than just shorten your LinkedIn URLs and give you short links on a custom domain. It also delivers powerful metrics on every single shortened link you create.
These are the metrics you can see directly on the Bitly Dashboard.
Number of clicks
This one’s straightforward enough: Bitly keeps track of how many clicks your link accumulates. This is beneficial because clicks generally mean eyeballs, and you won’t get customer or client traction until you get their attention.
Time of clicks
In addition to seeing how many clicks each of your links attract, you can see when they were clicked. Bitly gives you a breakdown of how many clicks you get each day.
Time of clicks can be beneficial because this metric gives you a clearer sense of how your audience interacts with your brand over time. Paired with other data (such as when you launched a social media campaign, made a specific LinkedIn post, or sent a marketing email), the time of clicks begins to paint a fuller picture.
Device types
Bitly metrics can tell you how many clicks came from which device types and operating systems. This may not matter so much if you’re just trying to draw recruiters in to view your resume, but it can matter a great deal if you’re working on digital marketing efforts or trying to improve the SEO of your LinkedIn account profile.
Geographical data
Geographical data helps you see where the people engaging with your content are located, giving you insight into where your most likely customers are. And gaining better customer understanding creates a better marketing focus.
If you’re running paid campaigns, click fraud (which can account for as many as 14% of clicks on paid search) is a concern that geographical data can sometimes help you identify. If you notice tons of clicks from a region that you don’t sell to (or that isn’t buying), that could be a sign of click fraud.
Maximize your LinkedIn presence with Bitly’s powerful link shortener
Shortened links—both in your LinkedIn content and to your LinkedIn presence and content—deliver convenience, value, and brand familiarity. And when you choose Bitly for your link-shortening needs, you also gain powerful data you can use to hone your LinkedIn approach and better understand your audience.
Ready to get started with better, shorter links? Sign up free today!