It’s an old story and it’s definitely here to stay. Companies are using Bit.ly on Social Networks for the shortening service and for tracking who and from where they are coming. But is it safe?

bitly, brands, competitors opendata

A bit to the story background and how I decided to write this. In the meantime I moved to Germany and I didn’t take my old Tchibo coffeemaker with me, so I had to buy another one. It’s the same machine, just that it has an awesomer color. It’s Metal Orange.

tchibo cofeemaker

So I searched for Tchibo to give them a like so I can tag them on Facebook. And what I saw was a bit.ly link, it’s not bad. I don’t want to make them look bad, everyone is using Bit.ly for SocialMedia Link sharing. I have also used it for a long time and I am still using it. The bad thing was that the link was working only on mobile phones, but was accessible for everyone on the Facebook page.

Back to our story about Bit.ly, Brands, Competitors and Open Data. Usually Companies are not able to see what impact the other companies have with their campaigns on social media, but with bit.ly, it’s another story.

Let’s take as an example Tchibo’s bit.ly link which is posted on facebook. Wondering how many click’s they get on a link on Facebook? Well you can find it out easily. The link they posted is http://bit.ly/Uhrenanprobe ,  if you add a + to it, it results in http://bit.ly/Uhrenanprobe+. You can do this to any bit.ly link. If you access it, you will get a lot of information about number of clicks, what time it performed best, what the sources for the click were, demographics and shares. And if you are very passionate about this and do it on a regular basis, you can see how they promote, where they promote and what their results are.

Tchibo bi.tly

The question is: Is bit.ly to public for big brands? Is it dangerous for Brands?

In some contexts it is, because competitors know where your online strong markets are and how your audience is reacting on what you do online. They can either copy you or innovate on what you are doing online.

What do you think?