Using URL shorteners when distributing surveys

[AndrejKiri]

I noticed that in sig-end-user, we use URL shorteners when posting on socials. URL shorteners can be helpful when conducting surveys. They often track data about impressions and engagements, that we can use to calculate survey KPIs like response rates (Google Forms do not collect this data). Also, by creating multiple links for each distribution channel, we can break down the KPIs per channel. Right now, we are not doing that.

I suggest to:

1. Find out what URL shortener do we use and how (who is the owner, how does it fit to the process of survey distribution currently, etc.)
2. Explore what features are available and how can we make use of them
3. Document guidelines around using it in the Community survey best practices

Example screenshot from a LinkedIn post promoting one of our surveys:

[AndrejKiri]

I reviewed Buffer.com that OpenTelemetry folks use for posting on social media (LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon). Unfortunately, it is not very helpful for the use case I am describing above. Drawbacks:

1. Not possible, create a shortened link that we would be able to use, e.g. on a website banner. This way we inevitably end up with an incomplete picture.
2. Link analytics works only for LinkedIn but not for Bluesky and Mastodon. Again, even more incomplete picture.
3. It automatically creates a unique shortened link for each post, what is annoying if you need to do calculations per survey.

My conclusion is that if this is interesting for us, we should look into a specialized shortening tool, like bit.ly. Having said that, Buffer has a lot of its own benefits, so I am not suggesting to drop using it.

Thanks for the Buffer.com access @avillela. Feel free to remove me from the org.

As a next step, I will look into bit.ly and suggest how we might start using it to better track survey KPIs.

FYI @reese-lee @danielgblanco