It seems that the larger url trimming services are gaining a lot of ground these days, and are churning over huge amounts of urls. This also feeds them a ton of data on what people are interested on the web, which will benefit these trimming services at some point in the future. We’re feeding their databases with enourmous amounts of information on what everyone on the web is talking about.

But, what about ourselves? How does keeping all of my trimmed url analytics on some other companies servers benefit me? How can I boost my own brand recognition if I were to create my own personal url trimming application?

Those were the exact goals in the creation of my own url trimming app: http://entr.in/ger/

I wanted to accomplish the same things that bit.ly or tr.im were doing, but to also keep my brand http://derekentringer.com intact with all of the Trimmed URL’s that I was pushing out onto the web. Why would I push another companies brand recognition with all of the interesting articles and videos that I was sharing when using a smaller url? Why wouldn’t any Twitter or Facebook user want their own trimmed url? I believe that using your own custom url trimming service can benefit both your brand recognition, as well your own internal link tracking and social media monitoring initiatives.

Now, I don’t think that using tr.im or bit.ly is a bad thing, but, if you remember very recently, tr.im almost went offline right along with all of its data.

Protect your own data, boost your brand awareness, and get your own url trimming service.

If you’re looking for you own url trimming application, hit me up in the contact area. I’m sure we can work something out to fit your needs.

Note: If you decide to trim a url with entr.in/ger/, it will work, but you will not be able to track the link analytics. This is my own personal url trimming application.

SEMPO surveys consistently show that brand awareness is the top objective of many paid search programs. But, who would use PPC campaigns for branding?

So is the Internet just another direct marketing medium? I don’t think so. The transformation from one-to-one to many-to-many is occurring in the world of social media. Nothing on the internet fits the concept of branding quite like Web 2.0. Branding is a social phenomenon. Web 2.0 is social media. The desire to fit in is a huge part of branding. Web 2.0 is the sheer momentum of the bandwagon. It is group think, which is what moves t-shirts at the mall, or the latest fashion styles at your local mall.

While viral marketing is all the rage, the means through which a message goes viral is social media. Social media is Internet word of mouth.

The poet W.H. Auden famously said:

“The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”

If you want them to love you on the Internet, you won’t get there by shouting your name the loudest. You need to be heard, but your message also must resonate emotionally and socially with the consumer. If the message doesn’t resonate, it’s just noise and not signal. Those who make the best use of social media are the ones who will be most successful building their brands on the Internet. Social Media Optimization (SMO), not paid search, is the path to brand building online.