It’s all very well grabbing a Facebook Vanity URL when they launch in a few hours’ time, but how do you track who’s using it?
SocialToo may have the solution. The company, which already offers a range support services like auto-follow, unfollow notifications, filtering and survey creation for social networks, is reportedly to launch an analytics service for Facebook.
SocialToo currently offer a redirect URL service for Facebook that allows users to give out an easy-to-remember address for their Facebook profile. With Facebook Vanity URLs, that service is suddenly not needed so SocialToo founder Jesse Stay has found a way to add value to his offering.
Quoted by The Inquisitr, he explains:
“…tonight you’ll be able to get a Facebook vanity URL and get the SEO benefits, but the URL you’ll want to hand out to all your friends will be your SocialToo vanity URL because we’ll provide statistics around those clicking on the URL, the browsers they’re using, where they’re located, and where they’re clicking from (if available).”
This is a great idea, whether you’re using Facebook for business or you’re just nosey as to who’s stalking your profile. What’s more, in the near future they’re looking to extend the service to Twitter and FriendFeed. An API will also be made available for developers to add this service into their applications.
The idea is a great ‘save’ from SocialToo, who would have been sitting on a useless product from tonight. Let’s face it, an ‘official’ Facebook vanity URL is much more desirable than a third party one. With the new analytics dimension, they may just hang onto their customers and even gain a few more.
This isn’t the first time SocialToo have had to revise their offerings based on changes beyond their control, although it’s usually Twitter that is the culprit. Jesse Stay has frequently complained about how Twitter makes changes to its service without consulting people who make a living from Twitter support services.
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