Step 1. Buy a Short URL

If you haven’t used domain.nr before it is the perfect place to find snooty, geeky domains that guys with trendy glasses who spend too much time sipping espresso will LOVE.  Names like Flickr, del.icio.us and buzz.io

Step 2. Set an A Record or CNAME record to point your tiny url to bit.ly

doing this is a little bit different on each web host but usually very simple.  bit.ly will give you the CNAME and A records to use. If you are doing a subdomain like I did (i.buzz.io) you MUST use the CNAME.

One tip: lower your TTL value so when bit.ly checks for it it will see it quickly

Step 3. Add it to your bit.ly account

Log into bit.ly and go to account>settings and you should see something like this:

That’s it – you should be ready to go.  Now when you add a link to twitter you can be as cool as the New York Times or other bigshots. This is a great tool for branding or any type of viral marketing.

I’ve been meaning to talk about the Wolverine leak but for some reason, I haven’t. So this is the lucky day because I found something interesting about it.

So we all know it leaked. Whether it was on accident or not is still to be decided, despite the fact that they say the FBI is hot on the case. But call me crazy, there’s going to be way more buzz about the much awaited X-Men movie if the leak was on “accident.”

Anyway, Ad Age is predicting that Wolverine will make $100 million opening weekend, which is twice as much what they are predicting for the new Star Trek movie. Both movies have had a lot of buzz but with the leak, Wolverine has had a lot more. So the prediction makes sense when only considering the amount of buzz.

The predictions don’t make as much sense when you consider the reviews for the movies. Star Trek fans have been going crazy for the new movie and the reviews from trekkies who got a sneak peak have been crazy good. On the other hand, online reviews for Wolverine have been really crappy.

So I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks who wins: buzz or quality?

The reaction was less than positive. Moms were mad, real mad. Tweets, blogs, and youtube videos were popping up like crazy about the offense taken from the ad.

For those of you who thought that ad was pulled quickly enough that a spoof couldn’t be made, I am about to put your minds at ease. This is our favorite response video

Obviously, J&J should have tested the ad before the launch. That was their big mistake. Although they are still getting a ton of negative fallout from it they handled the reaction well. They immediately apologized and pulled the ad; it was launched on Friday and by Monday, the ad had been pulled. The buzz about the ad continued throughout the week and mostly fizzled by Friday.

The Motrin story is becoming an instant case study for how influential social media is on brands today. It also proves that there are huge opportunities to use social media to improve your brand image.

Even though there was negative buzz about Motrin, the good thing is that the fact that people were tweeting and blogging about it proves that there is some level of passion for the brand. Now Motrin’s challenge is to take that passion and make it positive.

So you might ask “what would buzz.io have done differently?” Well as you have heard us preach so many times from this pulpit it is about the conversations with your customers.  Don’t wait until a crisis to start talking.  Have you seen Motrin contact the offended mothers and apologize? they probably lost some moms forever because of this but by having a conversation they might have turned some anger into excitement because they are a brand that cares.

It isn’t too late for your brand – get out to the conversations and start talking!

Here is our logo – we like it a lot.