Track links shared onto Google+ with awe.sm

Only two days into its “field trial,” it’s still too early to know if Google+ will be a Facebook killer, but the new social network already is a hit among those lucky enough to have squeezed in before new signups were suspended because of “insane demand.”

If you got into the trial — or you’re patiently still waiting for your invitation to come through (any minute now…) — here’s good news: awe.sm now tracks the links that you share on Google+.

In our publisher tool and the awe.sm bookmarklet, you’ll notice a new shortener icon for Google+. To share a webpage, photo, or video, use our button to create a tracking link, then paste that link into your Google+ stream.

Your Circles will see a title, summary, & preview image from the original destination URL, but we’ll track clicks and conversions from that link right alongside the links you publish to other channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. By creating a unique tracking link for each time you share to a social network, we can measure the performance of each share action and each channel. The goal, as always: make an apples-to-apples comparison of all of your social media marketing efforts in one place, so you can understand what content works, where, and why.

The weeks ahead will be interesting. Google+ will be adding more users and features, awe.sm will be adding enhancements to fine-tune what sharing behavior you can track, and patterns should start to emerge about how users engage with this new network. It’s too soon to draw any conclusions or make any recommendations except this: share some links, analyze their performance, and focus on actionable data, not buzz.

For more background on how awe.sm works, see Jonathan’s piece on how awe.sm uses tracking links. If you have any questions, ideas, or observations — or want a cool teeshirt — drop us a line.