Using Bit.ly Analytics Strategically

Ever read a moving newspaper NYT article, or enraged by a column in the Washington Post? Now you can vent with countless others from across the social web -- or at least rest assured that your views are not yours alone. I recently stumbled across the feature on Bit.ly (the ubiquitous url-shortening tool) that allows you to identify which other Twitter users are linking to a particular site or article. In order to access the feature, you have to create a Bit.ly account (http://bit.ly/a/sign_up) and then paste the target URL into the "Shorten links" box. Once signed in, add a + sign after the shortened URL and paste it into the web browser. What do you get? An aggregated list of every Twitter user who has linked to the article. Here's an example: http://bit.ly/9QitXl+

What's so great about this tool is that you can use it on just about any URL to identify like-minded people. So, if you're tasked with building a Twitter list of environmentalists for, example, you can use Bit.ly to find them. Or, lets say you are advocating for Wall St reform and you want to find out who else supports your cause. Find an appropriate tweet on the Obama Twitter account, add a + sign and you've just found a few thousand supporters: http://j.mp/bhyaXG+

Lastly, the website BackType.com is also worth checking out and provides information across a variety of social networks. Here's a link to an example on BackType: http://bit.ly/bUCd9V