Hi Everyone,

Some of you may have started noticing a new short URL in your tweets: vsb.li. It’s something we have been experimenting with over the last few weeks, and just started rolling out to many more accounts this week.

As you know, prior to this, we used various URL shortening services to distribute your links. Among them were bit.ly, j.mp, is.gd and goo.gl. We’ll still use these services when necessary, but have moved a lot of our links to vsb.li for a simple but important reason: it’s faster.

Because vsb.li sits on our servers, it means that followers who click your links don’t have to bounce through multiple services before they arrive at the destination page. The links are coming to our servers already (it’s how we provide the awesome analytics), so might as well bring them here right away instead of going through an intermediary.

Note: For those of you who have provided your Bitly credentials, your links will continue to use your Bitly URLs.

It’s a continued effort to make the process seamless for your followers, and this is another step in that direction.

Cheers!
Saif

Hi Everyone,

As you know, one of our objectives here at Visibli is to help users optimize their social media engagement — in other words, help you share content that’s more interesting to your followers.

Over the last couple of weeks, many of you have started to see (and subscribe to!) the new version of our analytics platform. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, you can do so by visiting the Analytics page. The different sections should give you a taste of what’s behind the scenes.

There are many new features in this version, but the two that are worth highlighting here are content categorization, and follower segmentation and targeting.

Categorize Links (click to enlarge)

Content Categorization

In the last version of our analytics product, we showed you what your most popular links were. This time, we’ve got well beyond that to make things even easier. We now automatically categorize your content into popular topics (technology, entertainment, music, etc.), and show you how many average clicks content from each of these categories receives. We do the same by analyzing and comparing formats (videos, images, articles, etc.) so that you know what your followers are engaging with the most!

Segment Followers (click to enlarge)

Follower Segmentation & Targeting
This is probably the coolest and most valuable part of the new platform.

Say you tweet about technology and sports. But what if a significant portion of your followers are actually interested in entertainment? The new Analytics platform does this analysis for you. We’ll study the content from your most engaged followers to understand what topics they’re interested in. We’ll then present it to you so that you can have a better sense of their interests.

Better yet. Not only can you filter your followers based on their interests, but you can also sort them based on influence, engagement level and interest level. Then, right from the system, you can send them very targeted messages.

Finally, two more sections that we’ve created are timing optimization (what’s the best time to tweet each day? week?), and performance scorecard (how are you performing, and what are some actionable recommendations?).

Using these, every Twitter user can increase the engagement they receive from their followers. If you’d like to purchase the new analytics, or if you have any questions, feel free to email us at sales@visibli.com.

Cheers,
Saif

Howdy all!

In our content and presentations, we often make claims that Visibli’s Engagement Bar is orders of magnitude better than typical promotional content. Historically, image, flash and even rich media ads have had CTRs of around 0.1%.

Well, they’re getting even worse!

Recently released data from Google (story: Mashable) suggests that CTRs for ads now sit at 0.09%.

Industry Ad CTRs

What this trend is telling us is that internet users are not only disengaged from many of the existing ad formats, but are tuning them out completely — “Banner Blindness” as they call it. What they’re prefer instead, is to be presented with content that they have already shown interest in and would love to hear more about!

The Engagement Bar, with 5%+ CTRs, does exactly that. Not only does it extend your brand every time you share a link (and your Fans/Followers pass it along), but it also helps you promote your newest campaigns. When this happens, readers are eager to engage with that content.

Something to keep in mind as we all use the Engagement Bar. Do you have a new campaign you’d like to make your followers aware of? Remember to update the bar and keep things fresh!

Cheers,
Saif

We’re super thrilled to announce today that we’ve just launched a new partnership with Seesmic, the awesome Twitter app used by so many power users and brand managers.

What do power users and brands love more than anything else? Data. Analytics. Numbers that go up and down… and up again.

Starting today, all Seesmic users will be able to see real-time analytics for the links they share on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks; and they’ll be able to do this from right within the app!

Visibli Plugin for Seesmic

Here’s Seesmic’s take in their blog post, and you can download the Visibli plugin from their marketplace.

Give it a try, and let us know what you think.

Best,
Saif

[Press Release]

Following Impressive Trials, Visibli Partners with John Legend, Quincy Jones and Interscope Records for Direct-to-Fan Marketing

●      Visibli, creators of the Engagement Bar™, raises new round of financing from Extreme Venture Partners and angel investors

●      The company is announcing new partnerships with John Legend and other tier-1 music artists after trials with Quincy Jones and Interscope Records led to 50x higher engagement than typical rates.

●      Hundreds of brands and agencies also use Visibli to promote their products, with more than 50 million links managed monthly

March 3, 2011

TORONTO—Visibli, creators of the link-based Engagement Bar™, is proud to announce their most recent funding round as well as new partnerships with prominent artists such as John Legend, Quincy Jones and Interscope Records.  The company’s Engagement Bar, which was released in October 2010, helps artists and brands promote their products through Twitter and Facebook links.  Over 50 million links are shared with the Visibli Engagement Bar each month.

The current round’s participants include Extreme Venture Partners and several angel investors. The company will be using the financing to extend the Engagement Bar platform and build deep analytics to help users better understand audience behavior.

50x Higher Engagement for Artists and Music Labels

Visibli is revolutionizing direct-to-fan marketing by giving artists and labels a new way to actively promote their music directly to fans.  By integrating with services like SoundCloud, FanBridge and iTunes, the company has increased its focus in the space.

The fledging company has also signed new partnerships with multi-Grammy winner John Legend and a number of other tier-1 artists to help them promote their music with each link.  Recent trials with Quincy Jones and his label, Interscope Records, led to 50x higher engagement from fans compared to typical rates.

“The value from a tool like Visibli’s Engagement Bar is crystal clear,” said Lee Hammond, Director of New Media at Interscope Records. “We’re constantly looking for tools to help us with direct-to-fan marketing, and this fits in perfectly with our strategy. Our artists have millions of fans who they interact with everyday on Facebook and Twitter, and this will allow us to share his music with them in an engaging and non-intrusive way.”

Visibli for Brands and Agencies

Visibli has also achieved significant growth working with hundreds of brands and agencies everyday. The company’s Engagement Bar platform allows organizations to better-interact with their customers. Using the self-serve system, brands are able to customize the promotional messages shared with each link, and track the success of their campaigns with detailed analytics.

Screenshots

Quincy Jones Example

Visibli Analytics

For more information about Visibli, please visit http://visibli.com/.

About Visibli

Visibli pushes the boundaries of traditional web-based promotional tools by helping companies expand their digital audience, and promote their products through shared links. Founded by Saif Ajani and Minaz Abdulla, the company has continued to grow in popularity among brands, publishers and artists, and manages over 50mm links each month for its clients.

Join a VC-backed startup as one of its first 5 employees!

WHO WE ARE
Visibli is changing the way links are shared and consumed on the web. Our partners include 3 of the top 4 music labels, professional athletes and national publishers. With the company growing rapidly, we’re looking for new teammates to join us.

The company is backed by Extreme Venture Partners (http://www.extremevp.com/portfolio), and resides in one of the truly coolest workspaces you have ever seen. We’re located at Yonge & King in downtown Toronto, and share office space with some of the smartest and fastest-growing tech startups in the country.

RECENT COVERAGE & RECOGNITION
* IDC: Ten Canadian Digital Media Companies to Watch http://bit.ly/dZNfJJ
* TheNextWeb: 7 Canadian Start-Ups to watch in 2011 http://bit.ly/eR2uTA
* TechCrunch: Visibli Gives Brands And Companies A Way To Personalize Links http://tcrn.ch/fQrBSq

WHO YOU ARE
You are a talented, motivated engineer who knows how to punch above your weight class. You’re not afraid to tackle big challenges and “make-it-happen” in half the time it takes the next engineer. Your get bored at businesses that have you doing the same, limited tasks everyday.

You want a hands-on experience with full exposure to each element of the business — think, build, ship, review, repeat. You have big aspirations, have always wanted to be part of a founding team, and see this as an opportunity to join a startup at the ground floor with significant equity.

REQUIREMENTS
- 1-3 yrs of web development experience: PHP, RoR, Web Services, MySQL, LAMP stack
- Proficient in Object Oriented Design principles and design patterns
- Experience with latest web technologies and platforms: AJAX, JSON, DOM, etc.
- A degree in a computer-related field
- Experience with social media and APIs (Facebook,Twitter, Youtube) desirable
- Experience with UI design/graphics development is highly advantageous
- Scaling web applications on multiple servers is highly advantageous
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment

BENEFITS
- Free breakfast every morning
- Once a week lunch and learns
- Agile team room
- Foosball and ping pong tables
- Access to a Playstation 3, XBox 360 (with Kinect) and Microsoft Surface in our games room
- Full benefits

Email us your interest: jobs at visibli.com

Excited about Movember? We are. Any time you can make good people look funny with ‘staches is a great time in our books!  But why stop there? We’ve used Visibli to have some fun with it — all the while, raising money for prostate cancer. To add a ‘stache to any site…

Add “http://mothispage.com/” before any URL

(Example: http://mothispage.com/website.com)

Seriously, try it. And if you want to link your own Mo Space or Donate pages to your Movember Engagement Bar, you can customize it as well. Let us know what you think, and grow your site’s mo!

Cheers,
Saif

Hello (former) Assetizers,

Did you notice the new logo up top, and are you wondering what happened? We’re excited (ecstatic! pumped!) to announce that Assetize is now Visibli.com.

The reasoning behind this? Pretty simple. As our solution changed from ‘turning accounts into assets’ to helping publishers brand and monetize links, new branding was in order. And since we help publishers by making their identities and brands more visible, Visibli was the perfect name.

Note: Nothing has changed with respect to user accounts. You can still continue to login with the same credentials, and all your balances and account information carries over to the new domain.

A lot has changed here at Visibli over the last few weeks — from the addition of our web solution and referral program to our updated UI and name — and we’re moving as fast as ever. Of course, each move we make is with the intent of making things easier and better for you, our users, so your feedback is more valuable than ever. You know where to find us now – info@visibli.com.

Hoping you think we’re Visibli better,
Saif

Hello Assetizers,

Lots of new and exciting things brewing here at Assetize.  You probably saw our last note on the bookmarklet, which you can pick up from your My Accounts -> Bookmarklet page.  What else is new?

BRAND AND MONETIZE WEB LINKS

Assetize now also helps brand and monetize external links from your websites and blogs! Using this feature, all external links form your site will show the web toolbar (with your site’s branding) above destination pages.  Get started here, or see an example here.

You can customize the bar to match the look & feel of your site, and brand it with your logo. During beta, the self-branded toolbar helped increase user retention and pageviews from external links by 25%-40%!

Don’t want to monetize your links? That’s ok. You can remove the ‘Ad’ widget from the Customize page, and still use your self-branded bar above destination pages to retain users. We’ve seen the stats – it works!

INSTALLATION

Implementing this functionality on your website or blog is as easy as Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V (pronounced: Copy and Paste. Who knew ‘paste’ was spelled with a ‘V’?).

1. Visit http://assetize.com and click on Get Your Bar
2. Select ‘Website or Blog’ in Step 1, and go through the registration process
3. During Step 3, you’ll be able to sign in or register
4. Copy and paste the snippet of code from Step 4 into your website or blog’s header. Sample snippet:


Sample code snippet

Why only external links?  You probably already monetize your website or blog with AdSense or a similar network. We wanted to help you monetize a new asset from your site: links.

Did we miss something? Send us a note and let us know what you think.

Happy Assetizing,
Saif