Excerpted from the December 16th blog post<\/a> on the\u00a0DigitalGov <\/a>blog.\u00a0 Although written for social media experts in government, this is good information for anyone sharing information via social media. <\/em><\/p>\n Short URLs can actually be beneficial for people using assistive technologies because it shortens the reading time and the cognitive load that longer URLs can create. Imagine listening to http:\/\/www.usa.gov\/Citizen\/Topics\/Government-Unclaimed-Money.shtml<\/b><\/a> being read aloud versus http:\/\/go.usa.gov\/WhzY<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n With that in mind, you should avoid using the short URL as the link title, such as \u201cClick here: http:\/\/go.usa.gov\/Whtm<\/b><\/a>.\u201d (It\u2019s never a good idea to use \u201cclick here,\u201d but that\u2019s a story for another day.) It\u2019s ok to use a short URL as the link when you use actual words as the link title, such as \u201cLearn more about short URLs<\/b><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n You can\u2019t follow this rule when writing messages for social media because there isn\u2019t the option to use a link title. Instead, give a good description first so users can decide if they want to click the link, such as \u201cYou can learn more about how to create short .gov URLs at http:\/\/go.usa.gov\/Whtm<\/b><\/a>.\u201d Learn more about making social media accessible<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n