Integrating Retweet Buttons into Your WordPress Blog

Twitter is growing as a fantastic resource of relevant traffic to sites and blogs. I encourage all my clients to utilize RSS to Twitter automation through tools like Hootsuite or Twitterfeed. I’d also encourage you to integrate the ability for visitors to Tweet directly from your blog.

I’ve tested a few services, including a few WordPress plugins… and eventually decided to integrate Twitter’s Retweet Button. I like the interaction that the integration supplies. While other integrations require you to click, then submit from Twitter, this button allows you to login once and you just need to click the Retweet button and you’re done. Anything easier will result in greater usage when it comes to the web!

Some of the plugin don’t allow you to properly locate the button. I want mine directly in line with the person reading the post title. If my post title is more than one line… the button winds up dropping down since I can only position it with my post content. As a result, I integrated it manually by putting the following code above my Post Title on my main index page, archive and category pages and the single post page within my theme:

Tweet>/a>

http://twitter.com/StevenHodson @StevenHodson

just out of curiousity Doug is there any way to pick the size of the button — the large one or the smaller one

http://www.dknewmedia.com Douglas Karr

Hi Steven! You sure can – you can add the compact version by adding: tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; to the script.

http://twitter.com/ArminderDahul @ArminderDahul

Thanks Douglas – that was helpful. I was using the WordPress plugin but I came across this link and decided to go with the more "hands on" approach!
http://benjaminhoste.com Ben

Hi. I'm interested in doing this as well, but can't seem to get it set up right. When I place it above the post title code in the single page instead of sitting to the right of the title and in line with it, it pushes the title down. Can you explain what I'm doing wrong. Thanks.
Pingback: Facebook Like Button and WordPress Integration | Marketing Technology Blog
Pingback: WordPress Social Metrics Plugin | Marketing Technology Blog
http://www.marketingtechblog.com Douglas Karr

This is updated so that the appropriate text and link are populated within a page with multiple Twitter buttons like the Index page and Category or Archive Pages. You don’t have to add data-url and data-text to single post pages – Twitter will pull the information from the page title and the canonical URL.

About Douglas Karr