Blogging is one of the most powerful ways to enhance your online business. Whatever your online business is, getting a constant stream of targeted traffic is important in terms of promoting your business and it can also earn you significant advertising revenue if done correctly. One of the ways of getting traffic to any popular blog platform is to use social media branding websites such as Twitter. By installing some simple code on your blog, you can create a Twitter share button which will allow your readers to easily and quickly share your blog posts with others in their network. Below are a few ways in which this can be done and the code itself is compatible with the most popular blogging platforms including WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr.
Get the Code to Add Twitter Button
The first step is to get the code you need from the Twitter website. The code can be found on the following page: https://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons#tweet
At the time of writing, there is a choice of four styles of button, depending on what your aim is:
- Share a link button
- Hastag button
- Follow button
- Mention button
The share a link button is pretty self explanatory. It allows readers to share a link to your blog post via their Twitter feed for all of their followers to see.
The hashtag button automatically generates a hashtag for your blog post so that it is included in search results. A word or phrase is prefixed with the hastag (#), for example, #blogposts. If you then searched for the string #blogposts on Twitter, the results generated would show all of the tweets which had been posted about that subject.
The follow button again is self explanatory. It allows the reader to follow you on twitter with the click of a button, from within your blog.
The mention button allows them to tweet a message to you directly from within your blog.
Once you have chosen the type of button you want, you can set various parameters very easily with the click of a button from within the user interface on the page. For example, if you select the share a link button, you will have to enter the link URL you want to share. You can also select whether or not you want to show the count- i.e. the number of people following you, next to your button. You can set the hashtag you want to use and opt for a large or a small button.
Select which one you want and you will be presented with the relevant code to copy and paste into your blog platform.
Copy all of it to your clip board to paste into your blog template later. Of course, where it says “twitterusername” in the code, it will say whatever your user-name is. You can only create the button if you are logged into your account so it inserts your user-name automatically.
Integrating the Twitter Button to Popular Blogging Platform
Blogger.com
Go to your blogger dashboard and under the tab which says “more options,” click “layout.” You will be presented with a screen which shows you the layout of your blog. Here you can add gadgets and move things around. Click on the blue text reading “add gadget,” located on top of the column where you want your button to go. You will be presented with a series of options as buttons in a pop out box. Choose HTML/Javascript. When the screen opens, enter a title for your button at the top and insert the code into the content box. Click on “Save.” This will cause the content box to close. You will see that your button automatically sits on top of stack of buttons you have in the layout. Move it where you want it to go by dragging and dropping it. Click on “save.” View your blog and test your button to ensure it works correctly. That is it!
WordPress Blogs
On WordPress, you don’t necessarily have to copy the code, that is, unless you would like a style which you can only get from going via the Twitter website as above. WordPress has a plugin called sharedaddy which allows you to choose which share buttons you want on your wordpress blog. The plugin is available in a number of languages and is very simple to install on your blog automatically. There are a range of button styles to choose from within the application
Read more about it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharedaddy/
Tumblr.com
On Tumblr, simply go to the Customize Theme tab and click on “custom html”. Go to the head tag and paste the code you made on the Twitter buttons page inside the head tag. Click “save” and that is it. Test the button by going onto your Tumblr to see if it works.