Once you have discovered just how useful hyper links can be in your blog posts, facebook posts and especially tweets, you may also discover how cumbersome a 250 character link can be. Check out  http://bitly.com.  This handy tool shortens your links before posting them.
Without creating an account, you can use Bitly to simply shorten your links, but if you create a user name, you can also keep track of how many people clicked through and shared your link. Â Very handy indeed!
Here’s a list of more URL shorteners from MediaBistro.com