Long links eat up valuable space in newsletters, flyers, and social media posts. Here’s how to quickly create custom short URLs that are easy for your audience to remember, and which will allow you to track engagement with your posts.

There are several good URL shortening apps, such as Tiny.cc, Goo.gl or Bit.ly, which will reduce your links to a social media-friendly length. All you need to do is paste in the original long URL. The app will then generate a short link pointing to the same page as the original.

Some of these apps, such as Goo.gl, just generate short strings of random characters. These can be hard to replicate, if you’re trying to type in a link shown on a printed flyer.

However, some apps, such as Tiny.cc, allow you to customize the text of your short links. For example, if your Neighborhood Council is having a barbecue, you might create a short custom link to the event page, such as tiny.cc/AbcNCbbq. A custom link is easy to remember, making it great for use in places where the link can’t be clicked, like posters or Instagram.

TIP: use shortlinks to track outreach engagement. Some URL shorteners like Tiny.cc will allow you to track the number of clicks your links get, if you create a free account. This is a helpful way to see how many people interact with your links, and when.

Outreach Tip Of The Week is an ongoing series on using communications, branding, marketing, and public relations to build better relationships with your stakeholders. Send your outreach questions to annmarie@empowerla.org for the chance to be featured in a future Outreach Tip article.