Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has grown to create what most people would call a social media revolution. By the very nature of the short messages it hosts, Twitter is a wonderful marketing and promotion tool that no serious blogger can ignore.

In this article, we have compiled most useful Twitter plug-ins, hacks and tips for WordPress to help you get the most out of Twitter in your WordPress blog.

Wordpress Twitter Hacks

Automatically provide tinyurls for your WordPress blog posts

Are you on Twitter? I am. This service make an intensive use of tinyurls in order to reduce the size of urls. Why not provide automatically provide a tinyurl to your readers so they can use it on Tweeter?

Because of the restriction on character numbers in Twitter, you have to use a URL shorten when tweeting URLs. So, to help your readers tweet about your posts, you should definitely provide short URLs for all of your posts.

To achieve this code, simply open your functions.php file and paste the following code:

function getTinyUrl($url) {
    $tinyurl = file_get_contents("http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=".$url);
    return $tinyurl;
}

On your single.php file, paste the following within the loop:

ID));
echo 'Tiny Url for this post: <a href="'.$turl.'">'.$turl.'</a>'
?&gt;

Source: Automatically provide tinyurls for your WordPress blog posts

Create a “Twitter This” Button for WordPress Posts

Twitter is definitely a great way to gain exposure on the Web. This is why I created a fancy “Send to Twitter” button and implemented it on my blogs (see links at the bottom of the article).This is the basic code for a typical “Tweet This” Button, you can use some images or CSS styling to make it more attractive.

<a title="Send this page to Twitter!" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading &lt;?php the_permalink(); ?&gt;" target="_blank">Spread on Twitter</a>

Displaying Total Number Twitter Followers on WordPress Blog

You are looking for way to display total number of your Twitter followers on your wordpress blog and update automatically. You can use this code to display your followers anywhere you want in wordpress, may be you want to display this number in Side Bar of your blog .

Open functions.php and paste this php function there.

function string_getInsertedString($long_string,$short_string,$is_html=false){
if($short_string>=strlen($long_string))return false;
$insertion_length=strlen($long_string)-strlen($short_string);
for($i=0;$isaveHTML();
$element->parentNode->removeChild($element);
$html2=$document->saveHTML();
return string_getInsertedString($html,$html2,true);
}  
 
function getFollowers($username){
$x = file_get_contents("http://twitter.com/".$username);
$doc = new DomDocument;
@$doc->loadHTML($x);
$ele = $doc->getElementById('follower_count');
$innerHTML=preg_replace('/^< [^>]*>(.*)< [^>]*>$/',"\\1",DOMElement_getOuterHTML($doc,$ele));
return $innerHTML;
}

Now simply use this code to display total number of your Twitter followers. Just replace our username “themeflash” with yours.

Of course you can further style it with CSS. You can also try some fancy background images or twitter bird. For example.

<span style="border: 1px solid #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; background: #cc0000 none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Myriad Pro',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-weight: bold; width: auto;">Proudly Followed by  Followers</span>

Source: Displaying Total Number Twitter Followers on WordPress

Using Twitter avatars in comments without plug-ins

I was pretty interested in the Twittar plug-in when it was first released and decided to look at the source to see how it works.So what about displaying Twitter avatars in your comments, instead of gravatars?

So you want to integrate Twitter avatars to your comments? No problem!

The first thing to do is to get the functions file here or here.

Once you have it, unzip the archive and open the twittar.php file. Select all its content and paste it to the functions.php file from your theme.

The last thing to do is to open your comments.php file and find the comments loops. Then, paste the following line inside it:

Source: Use Twitter avatars in comments

Your Twitter Feed on a Separate WordPress Page

You might want to create a separate page on your WordPress blog for displaying your latest tweets and updates.First you will need to create a Twitter page template “twitter-page.php” (you can use different name) to display Twitter feed, paste the following code and add it to your blog.

Source: Your Twitter Feed on a Separate WordPress Page

Detect Visitors From Twitter

Visitors coming to my blogs from Twitter now represent something like 10% of all my traffic, which is quite a lot. Because many Twitter users re-tweet blog posts that they like, it may be a very good idea to detect Twitter visitors, welcome them and, of course, remind them that their re-tweets are appreciated.

To do this, open your single.php file and paste these lines where you’d like your “Welcome Twitter user” message to be displayed.

Source: Detect Visitors From Twitter

Display your latest tweet as an image

TwitSig is a twitter signature service provider that allows you to get an auto-updating image that displays your latest Twitter entry. You can use this image as your forum signatures, in WordPress posts, in blog sidebars or may be even in emails.

1. Go to Twitsig.com. You don’t have to register: very nice!
2. Simply enter your Twitter username in the text field.
3. And your Twitter image is ready, displaying your latest tweet. The image is automatically updated when you update your Twitter status.
4. Open any of your WordPress theme files and paste the following code (make sure to replace my username with yours!):

<a href="http://twitter.com/instantshift"><img src="http://twitsig.com/instantshift.jpg" alt="" /></a>

Display Latest Tweets From Multiple Users

Now what you are looking for? Maybe you want to pull multiple tweets from multiple user accounts and display them. With the code below, you are able to define what you want before the Twitter block, after the Twitter block, before and after each individual tweet, and after the displayed user name. You can also turn off the displayed user names if you are looking to show all of your own personal tweets from multiple accounts!

", ">", $feed);
$clean = explode("", $feed);
$amount = count($clean) - 1;
 
for ($i = 1; $i <= $amount; $i++) {
 
$entry_close = explode("", $clean[$i]);
$clean_content_1 = explode("", $entry_close[0]);
$clean_content = explode("", $clean_content_1[1]);
$clean_name_2 = explode("", $entry_close[0]);
$clean_name_1 = explode("(", $clean_name_2[1]);
$clean_name = explode(")", $clean_name_1[1]);
$clean_uri_1 = explode("", $entry_close[0]);
$clean_uri = explode("", $clean_uri_1[1]);
 
echo $prefix_sub;
if ($show == 1) { echo "<a href="\">" . $clean_name[0] . "</a>" . $wedge; }
echo $clean_content[0];
echo $suffix_sub;
 
}
}
echo $prefix;
parse_feed($usernames, $limit, $show, $prefix_sub, $wedge, $suffix_sub);
echo $suffix;
?&gt;

Source : Display Latest Tweets From Multiple Users

Create a Twitter page on your WordPress blog

We already showed you how to display your latest tweet on your blog, in your sidebar for example. Another good way to introduce readers to your Twitter updates is to create a dedicated page for displaying your tweets, using the powerful “Page template” WordPress option.

To perform this hack, you need to know how to create and use page templates. If you’re not familiar with this, this article will tell you all you need to know.

Here’s the code to create a Twitter page template. Paste it in a new file, name the file something like twitter-page.php, for example, and then add it to your blog.

This code uses the wp_rss() function from WordPress core, which is an RSS reader. In the first argument I pass my Twitter RSS feed, and in the second argument I determine the number of entries to display.

Source : Create a Twitter page on your WordPress blog

Wordpress Twitter Plugins

Twitter ReTweet

Twitter ReTweet provides a function that displays a ReTweet link which gives visitors the ability to ReTweet the current post; supports custom URLs (perfect for Google Analytics Campaign Tracking).

Source : Twitter ReTweet

Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account.

Twitter Tools integrates with Twitter by giving you the following functionality:

Source : Twitter Tools

Twitter for Wordpress

Twitter for WordPress displays yours latest tweets in your WordPress blog.

Features

* Simply
* Customizable
* Widget support
* No options page (yes, its a feature)
* Uses Wordpress resources (no extra files needed)
* Detects URLs, e-mail address and @username replies

Usage
If you use WordPress widgets, just drag the widget into your sidebar and configure. If widgets are not your thing, use the following code to display your public Twitter messages:

Source : Twitter for Wordpress

Twitter Widget Pro

A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including @username, #hashtag, and link parsing. It supports displaying profiles images, and even lets you control whether to display the time and date of a tweet or how log ago it happened (about 5 hours ago, etc). Requires PHP5.

Source : Twitter Widget Pro

WP to Twitter

The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your WordPress blog using either the Cli.gs or Bit.ly URL shortening services to provide a link back to your post from Twitter.

For both services you can provide your information to maintain a list of your shortened URLs with your URL shortening service for statistics and your own records.

The plugin can send a default message for updating or editing posts or pages, but also allows you to write a custom Tweet for your post which says whatever you want. By default, the shortened URL from Cli.gs is appended to the end of your message, so you should keep that in mind when writing your custom Tweet.

Any status update you write which is longer than the available space will automatically be truncated by the plugin. This applies to both the default messages and to your custom messages.

Source : WP to Twitter

Thread Twitter

Thread Twitter fetch your tweets and display them in thread style.

Source : Thread Twitter

Twitter Poster

The Twitter Poster is a plugin which allows wordpress publishers to automatically post their new posts to their Twitter account. The Twitter Poster will take the title of a new post and will subit it to the Twitter account specified in the options. It will also add the link back to the post, allowing your twitter followers to access the post details.

Source : Twitter Poster

Twitter Friendly Links

So, you promote your blog posts via Twitter, huh? Me too. And those long blog post URLs, ugh! Yeah, we got rid of those using URL shortening services like TinyURL and tr.im but what about the name and/or brand? Your blog posts might be fab – very interesting to read and three thousand comments on each. But are you getting people to remember your website address in Twitter? No. Do you get backlinks from Twitter using TinyURL? No. Can you measure site statistics from TinyURL links on Twitter? No.

Source : Twitter Friendly Links

Wickett Twitter Widget

Display tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of your blog. As seen on WordPress.com.

Source : Wickett Twitter Widget

Twitter Blog

Twitter Blog will not only tweet your blog post, but it will also check hourly for replies to that tweet and turn it into a comment on that blog post. It also uses the bit.ly API for URL shortening and adds link generated to your bit.ly account for tracking purposes.

Source : Twitter Blog

Twitter Goodies

This plugin shows your twitter profile/search tweets under Sidebar Area (Widget), Post and/or Pages. Tweets will REFRESH AUTOMATICALLY. Also it has reply option inside widget on mouse over action. Admin panel option available under Settings -> Twitter Goodies to set different color combination and twitter widget options. This twitter widget is using Twitter Goodies APIs. Integrate Post to Twitter option added to v1.0.1. Best Twitter Tools and nice Twitter Widget GUI.

Source : Twitter Blog

TweetSuite

TweetBacks are great, but they’re just a single feature, the integration of Twitter and blogging can and should go much deeper than that.

Source : TweetSuite

TwitterCounter

Allows you to integrate TwitterCounter.com badges on your blog. Additionally, you can add the Twitter Remote to your blog, which shows which twitter users recently visited your blog or website. Manually add where you would like to display the badge / remote or use the WordPress sidebar widgets instead.

Source : TwitterCounter

Tweet This

Adds a “Tweet This Post” link to every post and page. Shortens URLs. Can automatically tweet new and scheduled blog posts. Customizable (check screenshots). Also included: Plurk, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Ping.fm, Reddit, and StumbleUpon support.

Source : Tweet This

Twitme

Twitme 1.6.9.7 fixes the problem that was caused by the 1.6.9.6 version. The problem was that json_encode was not found on php4 systems

Note: Twitme does not work in combination with other Twitter plugins like “Twitter Tools”. Make sure you disable those plugins before you install Twitme (This goes for any version of Twitme).

Source : Twitme

Tweetable

Tweetable is intended to help integrate Twitter into your blog. It can automatically tweet links to your blog posts as they are published. It can display your lastest tweet in your sidebar and add a tweetmeme widget after your posts. You can even use it to share a Twitter account among a blog’s author’s if you wish.

Source : Tweetable

Twitter Feed

The application will display the latest tweet from all of the active accounts and then displays those latest tweets in date order. So the newest tweet across all of the accounts will always be shown first. It is also possible to switch between allowing/disallowing PM (Private Message) tweets to be included in the display.

Source : Twitter Feed

@ Reply

This plugin allows you to add Twitter-like @reply links to comments. When clicked, those links insert the author name and a link to the comment you are replying to in the textarea.

Source : @ Reply

TweetMeme Button

The TweetMeme retweet button easily allows your blog to be retweeted. The button also provides a current count of how many times your story has been retweeted throughout twitter.

Source : TweetMeme Button

Found something missing in this post?

While compiling this stuff on this post, it’s possible that we miss some other great hack and plugins. Do not hesitate to share it with us in Comments so that we can add instantly.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 1:02 PM and is filed under Wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.