This is going to be a short post. But not as short as a tweet. Don’t know what a tweet is? You should. A tweet is to Twitter as a post is to WordPress. Only is tweet is no more than 140 characters. And while a tweet is very short, don’t let that fool you – there’s more to tweeting than meets the eye.
Participating in the “twitterverse” is a unique experience that is hard to describe. And saying that a tweet is just a short blog post is barely scratching the surface. Twitter is a lot like jazz: much easier understood by experiencing it, rather than simply talking about it. So while the rest of this post will talk about integrating Twitter with WordPress, our first piece of advice is to experience Twitter for yourself: create an account, follow folks with a common interest, and create your own tweets. Then come back here and read the rest of this post.
Assuming you’ve done that, the next step is to entice people to follow you, by integrating your Twitter activities with your blogging activities. There are two simple steps you can follow to do so. First, simply add a link to your Twitter profile on your blog. That way, any of your blog readers who are also on Twitter will be able to follow you quickly and easily. A simple WordPress Text widget will do the job, such as the one we used on this website:
Second, you can display your recent tweets inside another widget in your sidebar. The easiest way to do so is to use the “Twitter for WordPress” plugin. This plugin is very simple, but it’s all you really need to do the job of highlighting your participation on Twitter. Your goal is to get your blog readers interested in following you by showing a few of your recent tweets. The “Twitter for WordPress” plugin does that for you, allowing you to select the number of tweets to display, as well as a few other simple configuration options. Once installed, you can add a Twitter widget to your sidebar that looks something like this:
There’s a lot more you can do with Twitter, but the best way to start is to keep it simple. But do get started. Twitter is the hot new social networking tool, and you don’t want to miss out. And while you are at it, feel free to follow ThesisTheme to keep up on our latest activities tweets.
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Hey, Im following you now on twitter, eaglet7777. Where do you get the cute little Twitter bird to put in your sidebar?
Great post btw
Hey, Meg. Thanks for following me on Twitter. I’m glad you liked this post.
I actually don’t know the best place to get a Twitter bird to put in your sidebar. I searched quite a bit for graphics for this post, and was surprised at how little I could find. There are a few sites that have created free graphics, but I couldn’t find any on the Twitter site itself. Let me know if you find a good one.
Interesting post; got me started on Twitter……….can’t wait to see how it helps my blog traffic.
Hi there,
Would you happen to know how I might get TWO twitter feeds on my Thesis theme with that Twitter for Wordpress plug-in? I see I have the option for more than one Twitter widget, but whether I select 2 or any other number, nothing happens. Have you come across this?
Twitter rocks. I was making fun of my husband when he was telling me how big it is and I couldn’t see the point, then I realized just the tremendous possibilities with Twitter, and of course I am following YOU!