How to automatically add Tweet This to your blog articles

From my Twitter experience I came to the conclusion that Twitter and retweets are the future and adding a “tweet this” to your blog posts is a much better option than having the default “email to friend” button that bloggers use. “Tweet this” is modern, it is simple and it has much better potential of building awareness by helping your blog go viral.

Each tweet/retweet in my Twitter viral marketing case study was sent to an average of 755 twitterers. That is never going to happen with “email to friend” button. So I started adding manual tweet this links at the end of my blog posts.

This morning an article from John Chow ticked into my RSS newsreader: Tweet This Blog Post WordPress Plugin. John has arrived to the same conclusion as me regarding tweet this versus email this. And he showed the way to an easier implementation: Tweet This plugin that does the same as I have been doing manually.

Step-by-step install and customization of Tweet This

• Install and activate Tweet This WordPress plugin
• Chose URL shortener service and customize – I personally checked all the 4 options (Settings – Tweet This)
• Edit tweet-this.php file to customize the look of the tweet (Plugins – Tweet This – Edit). Locate this part in the tweet-this.php (line 78):

Manual customization is no longer needed as the new version of the plugin has the option for it.

function get_tweet_this_url() { $url = 'http://twitter.com/home/?status=' . get_tweet_this_short_url() . '+' . get_tweet_this_trim_title(); if (!tt_is_preview()) { if (get_option('tt_limit_to_single') == "true") { if (is_single() || is_page()) return $url; } else return $url; }

• I made two changes to the format that tweets will be shown in. First I put the title of the post in front of the URL
• And thanks to Jamie Harrop I included “Reading @HowToMakeMyBlog” in front of the tweet to promote my Twitter username and to track the tweets
• This is how the line 78 part of my tweet-this.php looks now:

function get_tweet_this_url() { $url = 'http://twitter.com/home/?status=Reading+@HowToMakeMyBlog ' . get_tweet_this_trim_title() . '+' . get_tweet_this_short_url(); if (!tt_is_preview()) { if (get_option('tt_limit_to_single') == "true") { if (is_single() || is_page()) return $url; } else return $url; } }

If you want the same tweet format, you basically just have to replace @HowToMakeMyBlog with your own Twitter username and paste it instead of the deafult code in tweet-this.php on line 78.

Changes I’d like to see in the next version of Tweet This

• Tweet This uses several URL shortener services but I’d like to see my favourite one, TweetBurner added to the list
• Tweet This button is shown on both blog posts and pages. Option to remove it from pages would be good

These two wishes have been fulfilled in the latest version of the plugin.

Tweet This in action now

All in all a great plugin which makes it easy to insert “tweet this” into your blog posts and makes my 5 step plan to getting your blog go viral on Twitter even easier:

1. Be active on Twitter and work on increasing your Twitter followers
2. Publish interesting article
3. Include tweet this at the end of the article
4. Tweet your article to your followers
5. Let your readers do the rest

See “tweet this” in action just below and feel free to tweet it to your friends.

Twitter Marketing E-Book

For much more information on Twitter, check out my “Twitter Marketing E-book: How to go viral on Twitter“. The e-book includes all the tips on how I use Twitter to build my authority, drive traffic to my blog and get customers. Enjoy twittering!

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Post written by Marko Saric on January 23, 2009 in Twitter Marketing