ON THE WEB

New Year’s Resolutions

The beginning of the year is a perfect time to enact a new and improved online presence. So whether you’re just starting out or looking to extend your reach, here are a few helpful tips from around the web to help maximize your efforts

With more than eight billion clicks per month and 80 million new links created daily, Bitly, a URL shortening and bookmarking service, is the largest link-sharing platform on the web. Bitly allows you to create short links to be shared across all of your social media channels to help expand your marketing reach and track your progress.

Join for free to receive real-time analytics and insights into your audience’s online activities to help you target your efforts and tweak your strategies. Bitly allows you to keep track of your links, see how many clicks they receive, compare your Bitly link’s performance to that of all Bitly links pointing to the same content, see what social networks and geographic locations are providing traffic, and more.

INFO: bitly.com

TIMING IS EVERYTHING Social media is all about timing. Though only your target audience can truly dictate the best and worst times to post, here are some general guidelines from Social Media Today’s “The Best and Worst Times to Post on Social Networks” infographic (courtesy of Social Caffeine).
Twitter BEST 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. WORST 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. AVOID Posting after 3 p.m. on Friday	Facebook BEST 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. WORST 8 p.m. to 8. a.m. PEAK TIME Wednesday at 3 p.m.	Google+ BEST 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. WORST 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. AVOID Posting in the evening	Pinterest BEST 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. WORST 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PEAK TIME Saturday morning

{COOL CLICKS} VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Registration is now open for Seeing is Believing 2014, optometry’s virtual conference, to be held January 29 to 30 from noon to 9 p.m. EST. Attendees will have full access to a virtual exhibit hall, 30 presentations, CE courses, and more from their personal computer.

INFO: sib2014.com

FACT SHEETS

Prevent Blindness America offers new fact sheets on its website to answer common questions about health insurance, Medicare coverage, the Affordable Care Act, and eyecare that may be helpful to you and your patients.

INFO: prevent blindness.org/health-insurance-and-your-eyes