I ran a poll last week asking if you were planning to , or already had integrated your blog with Twitter. The results polarised into two camps, either you were already inhtegrating or you were looking into it. This post is for the later group of readers.
Why Integrate WordPress with Twitter
Darren Rowse from Problogger brought to my attention the idea of a Homebase and Outposts approach to blogging and social media sites. This is something I strongly belive in this approach, read the post for a full descrption, but in brief it says that yoru home base (or blog) is your main property from where you do your main work, and the outposts are areas you push your work to. Using twitter integration tools you can simplfy pushing blogs posts from your home base out to your outputs.
The three main reason I integate with twitter are:
- The main reason I integrate with Twitter is to market my blog content to a wider auduence, this is made much more steamlined with Twitter plugins.
- Increasing productivity is another reaso0n to integrate, most bloggers spend a huge amount of time developing and marketing their site, if this can be made more efficient that time can be spent on other more important taks such as content development.
- You do not own our content on Twitter/facebook or any of the other social sites, you need a place to call your own where you house your original content. If you have a business blog, this will be where your call to action to generate income will be.
Enter The Plugin
There is always a plugin, and my Twitter integration plugin of choice that I use it Twitter tools by Alex King, it is a bi-directional post to tweet, tweet to post and tweet to widget fun fest
Download and install the plugin as you would any other, then the only other bit of configuration is to add your twitter user ID and password.
If you use other plugins, please feel free to tell me about them in teh commnets of thsi post.
Posts as Tweets
The main feature I use in this plugin is the ability to push posts as tweets into Twitter. Using this fucntionality I create a tweet which says “new at my blog Integrating Twitter with WordPress http://tinyurl.com/xyc” this tiny URL then send Tweepl back to the original post.
You can push all posts to Twitter, or opt them out. I only push out my key work in this way not every little post I publish on my blog.
Tweets Summarised into A post
The plugin allows bi-directional updates so you can then republish your tweets as a post.
Due to the small nature of tweets you can opt to publish single tweets or a digest of daily or weekly tweets into a post.
This is not a function I use, but If you are pushing out a lot of short valuable content into Twitter it will make sense to expose this to yoru non-twittering readers.
Tweets in a Sidebar Widget
Last but by no means least is the ability to push your tweets into a sidebar widget rather than a blog post.
BONUS Integration
I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, but you get all of the twitter integration plus a bonus Facebook integration when you read thsi post.
Twitter has created a Facebook application. If you install the app on your Facebook page it will pull your tweets and stick them on your Facebook profile as updates.
I have decided which outpost to concentrate on (Twitter) but I always like an automated outpost with which I can expand my blogs audience.
UPDATE: WordPress Social Media Integration Training
I have recorded a video training session of this social media integration methodology for my WordPress training and support community the WP Owners Club.
I’ve got a 14 day free trial at the moment, why not take out trial membership and check out the training, here’s what you need to do
1) Sigup for a 14 day free trial account at wpownersclub.com/sign-up
2) Go to http://wpownersclub.com/integrating-social-media-with-wordpress and watch your training
21 thoughts on “Integrating WordPress With Twitter”
Nice article… Didn’t know about Twitter Tools…
We currently run a collaborative blog, so four of us post (and tweet) from it. Do you know of any plugin that will allow tweeting from a different account depending on the author?
Thanks!
Hi James, I don’t know of a plugin to do that, but I have commended your question to the twitterverse, watch this space
thanks for sharing.
Great article, I did not know that there were so many options.
I found that writing blog posts and then using twitter to tell the world about this is similar to pinging a large list – getting lots of people to read. And I use Bit.ly to shorten any links I use in Twitter so that a link isn’t broken AND so that I can track how many people click on my link. Bit.ly shows REAL TIME tracking… every minute after a post you can see how many people clicked on your link. Pretty exciting really. And then I can repost my own tweet several times that first day and then several times over the next week or so, attracting even more. Not sure a plugin to my WordPress sites would be as effective.
Best,
Charles Seymour Jr
For some reason, I’m still having trouble getting the integration to work. When I installed the plugin, it sad “This version has not been tested with your current WP version.” I installed it anyway and logged in to twitter via the widget successfully. I guess my only confusion is this: will Twitter push your updated immediately, or once per day? If it’s only once per day, I wonder if there is a way to push it immediately. With the proper meta tagging, I think this could greatly increase my traffic.
I’ve double checked and twitter tool is tested up to 2.8.3, I am presuming you are at 2.8.4, so am I and I have not had any problems with 2.8.4.
The update to twitter is pushed when you publish your blog post.
Hope that helps
Neil
WP Dude
I’m actually trying to go the other way. When I post to Twitter, I want it to create a new blog post on WP. I read somewhere that it is possible with the same widget. But so far, I’m having no luck.
Super late response to this but… have you tried checking the box “Create a blog post from each of your tweets?” in the Twitter Tools WP plugin settings?
LOVE the convenience of this three-way connection :o) Works great, though I did have to make sure all my connections in the FB app were checked (one was at the main Twitter app page).
Thanks!
Remember twitter tools has a new authentication method now, I need to update the posts
can’t get the plugin to connect with twitter
“Authentication Failed. Please check your credentials and make sure Twitter is up and running.”
i don’t know what i’m doing wrong…
Twitter recently changed the way authentication works, you need to check you have the latest version of twitter tools and then add teh authemtication keys.
Hi Neil, I’m getting started with my new travel blog and have found your posts to be very helpful and informational. I wanted to say hello and tell you thank you. Any other good stuff you could point a newbie too?
Hi thanks for letting us know about this plugin mate.
It looks good and exactly what I’m after although I must admit I am somewhat struggling to get it working so far lol, but hopefully with a bit of time I can figure it out. Cheers
any tips on how to stop my blogs from creating a tweet? i changed my mind…lol
Nice article… But how about blog at WordPress.com?
Sorry that won’t work on wordpress.com only .org self hosted.
since Twitter changed the way your account is accessed this plugin doesn’t work as easily as it use to. anyway you could revamp this post or better yet make a new post about how to post your wordpress update to twitter?
thanks.
Thanks for the info. I have a site in English AND in Chinese, and I am just starting to figure out how to get all of my social media pumping for both sites. Keep up the good work!
Anna Lin
I was using WordPress.com and under their Settings > Sharings there was great tool that linked my blog posts to Facebook / Twitter / Linkedin plus more. It was simple to set up and no applications or plug-ins required. I then went to WordPress.org and was expecting the same ‘easy-to-use’ tool but am disappointed that such a basic tool doesn’t exist. I’ve spent endless frustrating hours trying to install plug-ins and have given up. I’m now reverting back to posting on both blogs just so I can get my message across quickly and simply. If I am ‘barking up the wrong tree’ and there is a miracle cure to end my woes please let me know!!!!
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