Twitter: Tools for WordPress Blogs

WordPress, the user-friendly software to design a website or blog, has now joined hands with twitter to give micro-blogging a completely new dimension. Micro-blogging differs from traditional blogging in the reduced number of characters used to express what the blogger feels.

Micro-blogging has been already revolutionized by interfaces of various social networking sites. Now, twitter has integrated its tools with your wordpress blog, giving you a two-way interaction between your two accounts. Below are some of the most popular twitter tools for you wordpress blog –

TweetThis

The first and basic plug-in you need is TweetThis. It will join your twitter account to your other accounts including your wordpress blog. This way, what you post on your blog gets tweeted and what you tweet is posted on your blog. In addition to this, TweetThis simplifies the process by adding a “TweetThis” button right after each of your blog post. All you need to do is click it.

TweetMeme

Earlier known as ReTweet, this plug-in adds a tweet button at the end of the blog entry so that readers can easily re-post the entry on twitter. It gives you a live tally of how many times your post has been shared and re-shared.

WP Follow Me

This cute plug-in encourages readers to follow your blog through twitter. It even floats along as one scroll down. Fully customized, it is a simple way for readers to share what you blog on wordpress.

Twit Press

If you want to let your Tweetmates know what you’ve been writing about, this is the perfect plug-in for the job. You can even choose which user you would like to notify.

Twitter Feed

This is much like a companion plug-in to tweet press. You can use it to promote your wordpress blog among the twitter community.

Tweet My Blog

Tweet My Blog creates a plug-in on your twitter that will let the other users know every time you update your blog. You can add it to you blog as well and your tweets will start showing up here. This is a more extensive plug-in for the same purpose as twitter feed.

My Twitter

This is perhaps the best plug-in for interaction between your twitter and wordpress accounts. You can customize the updates, decide how many tweets should be displayed and design them using style sheets.

Twitter Badge

One of the simplest ways of letting your readers know about you tweets is by adding a twitter badge on your blog. You can choose from a varied range and can customize them too. Tweet counter is a companion to this app. It displays the number of followers you have on twitter on your wordpress blog.

TweetBacks and TweetStats

By converting all tweets about your blogs into comments and adding them in the comment section, TweetBacks collects all responses you are getting for your blog. You can choose to separate them from the usual blog comments or may mash them up. TweetStats takes the TweetBack experience a step further. You can choose to display either the post with the most tweets or the post with recent tweets via this plug-in.