While reading an online news article last week, I noticed something I had not seen: embedded tweets. The tweets were used to display the real-time reactions to what the story was covering a day after the events had taken place. What really caught my eye was that all the links in the tweet were hot, and you could follow the person who had originally tweeted. The following tweet by CNN reporter David Daniel is an example of what I had seen.
New: @Invisible Children releases video answering some of the questions raised by viral #Kony2012 video http://t.co/1iDSSrmA
— David Daniel @š (@CNNLADavid) March 12, 2012
Notice that you can reply, retweet, favorite or follow just as if you were on Twitter, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or other client. This can be done with any tweet you can access on Twitter whether or not you follow the person and whether or not they follow you. (It might work on Tweetdeck as well, but I have not been able to get the embedding code through any client. It has to be through twitter.com.)
This is how you embed tweets in a blog post that uses WordPress. It really isn’t that hard, and will only add a minute or two for each tweet you desire to embed in your post. I’m not saying this is the only way that works, but it does work. If you know an easier way, feel free to share in the comments.
1. Download and install the plugin “Twitter embed” by kovshenin.
2. Activate the “Twitter embed” plugin. It will be live with no configurations or settings tweaks needed.
3. From twitter.com, access the tweet you want to embed.
4. Hover your cursor over the tweet and click “Open.” See image below:
5. After opening the tweet, click on “Details.” See below:
6. You many recognize this page as a twitter status page. It holds the link to a single tweet. Every tweet from every account in all the Twitterverse had a distinct url. Click “Embed this tweet.”
7. The box that opens gives the HTML, shortcode and regular link to that tweet. It also give you the opportunity to modify where that tweet will be displayed on the page. After deciding, the code will be highlighted (see image below). Copy and paste into your blog post at the point you want it to appear.
Below is that same tweet embedded. Hover over the links to see that each is live. Note also that you can follow me from that embedded tweet. HINT, HINT.
"Man, that's a great car!" #thingsidonthearintheparkinglot
— Marty Duren (@martyduren) March 12, 2012
