Creating a Custom Shortened URL

In this article, you will learn how to create a custom shortened URL using CNAME.

Lauren avatar
Written by Lauren
Updated over a week ago

In this article, we will go over:

What is the Short URL?

When using PostBeyond to share content to your social network, you may see "share.postbeyond.com" as the link within the snippet.

The short URL allows us to track clickthroughs. It does not affect how the URL is used - but rather it’s just a way of shortening it (same thing that bit.ly and twitter does).

For example:

Twitter

LinkedIn

You can customize this URL by creating a CNAME record in your DNS pointing to share.postbeyond.com and use it as a customized Short URL within PostBeyond.

Requirements to Create a Short URL

The domain must not match the company domain

Before you get started, you will need to choose a Short URL and to ensure that it has a different domain compared to your company's domain.

For example, if your Company is Top Notch:
The company website might be, www.topnotch.com, which means the domain is 'topnotch.com'

Do not select a custom short URL that contains this domain, rather, select something that is similar and represents the brand, for instance: share.topnotch.social (the domain being 'topnotch.social')

Why do the domains have to be different?

We have noticed an ongoing issue with LinkedIn, where if the short URL domain matches the domain of the URL being shared, custom actions applied to the PostBeyond shared content will be overridden. For example, if a custom image was applied in PostBeyond it will not display when shared to LinkedIn.

We do not know the specifics of what causes this issue since it is caused by an external platform.

Purchasing a domain

Your company may need to purchase the domain. Please speak with your IT department to complete this process. Domains are relatively inexpensive and can quickly be obtained.

NOTE: please make sure when purchasing a domain to include Route53 nameserver in the configuration.

Format

Always make sure to add a subdomain as well!

ie. share.topnotch.social not topnotch.social

How to Implement a Custom Short URL

Steps

  1. Determine your short URL media.company.com. As mentioned above, make sure it doesn't match your company domain

  2. In your DNS records, create a CNAME entry for your desired name referencing share.postbeyond.com . For your reference, we have an example of such a record in AWS Route 53. Your DNS management console may differ.

  • Go to Route 53

  • Select Hosted Zones

  • Select the desired Domain Name (e.g. company.com)

  • Choose "Create Record Set"

  • Fill in the details for a CNAME record as shown below

3. Have your CSM at PostBeyond set your Short URL to the desired address (e.g. media.company.com). Shown below is what the CSM will see in their settings:

Once this is completed, PostBeyond will advise when the change has been made. You will be able to see the change to the short URL in shared posts.

Related Articles:

Have questions? Contact us support@postbeyond.com

Did this answer your question?