Users who follow KeoweePremier on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the like will start to notice our new nifty custom short url instead of the more generic ones from Bit.ly or TinyURL.
As many of you know, services like bit.ly and its competitors are great for getting analytics on the content that you share through your various social media channels. They can give you a much better idea of how your content spreads throughout each service. Facebook and Twitter are obviously the heavy hitters, but Google+ is quickly giving them a run for their money as well. Some newer players to the game like Pinterest are also generating a lot of sharing, commenting, and general engagement. With their recent Facebook integration upgrade, we will all start seeing "Pins" flying around our new Facebook timelines before we know it.
Being that high-end Lake Keowee property is KeoweePremier.com's specialty and social sharing is a part of what I do everyday, I thought I would try to start using something that stood out a little more than a bit.ly link. I knew I didn't want to lose their free analytics and tools that make using them a breeze, but they recently made the custom url pro function available free to all users. This meant I could use my own custom short domain and still get to keep their great tools to use with it. I did some looking around, and found that keow.ee was available and I snapped it up for about $50. I used Domai.nr to check for availability, and once I saw that la.ke was already taken, keow.ee seemed like the perfect one. It is one character longer than bit.ly links, but certainly short enough to reduce a very long blog url to something much more reasonable for sharing on your networks.
Once I purchased the domain, it took about 48 hours before it was active. Once active, it let me edit the DNS records to add an A record pointing to the IP address that bit.ly specified in the "Use Your Own Custom Domain" process. Once that step was complete, it took bit.ly about 12 hours before it could see the new domain. Now that they can, I can shorten any url with my custom keow.ee short name instead of using the default bit.ly links.
Here is an example of one of them in action that links to my home page http://keow.ee/xa073C. Certainly not a necessity, but I think it ads a nice touch and brings a little more brand recognition and awareness to everything you share online.
I am a full-time Information Technology Director with a National non-profit, and the founder of KeoweePremier.com, a unique Web experience for potential home buyers, premier real estate agents, and exceptional businesses in the Lake Keowee marketplace. A native of South Florida, I have adopted the Upstate of South Carolina as my second hometown.
KeoweePremier.com markets exclusively premier Lake Keowee Real Estate. Lake Keowee is a man-made reservoir that originally was constructed in 1971. The natural beauty of the lake, however, soon drew visitors from far and wide to the many luxury lakefront communities on its 300-mile shoreline.
