So I was surfing doing research recently and I saw something I see a lot. Whenever I see it, a small part of my geeky heart dies inside so I thought I'd share.
It has to do with the social sharing buttons you find on blogs (like the cluster of buttons you see at the end of this post). Specifically, it has to do with the Twitter sharing button.
Here's what happened the other day and what happens frequently.
I was reading a post on a pretty large blog. The posts was excellent and I wanted to share it on Twitter. Naturally, I clicked the Twitter icon at the bottom of the post. This is what popped up:
I blurred out the post title and the link to protect the innocent.
Let me break it down:
- This is the post title. Good.
- This is the shortened link to the post. Good.
- This is the Twitter handle (a.k.a. username). This is where the problem is.
Clearly this person is using ShareThis (not a bad service) to allow others to share her stuff.
The problem? If it were me, I'd much prefer my own Twitter handle in there, not ShareThis's handle, wouldn't you? It is my post after all; I'd like my name attached to it.
Plus, I'd like this tweet to show up in my Twitter mentions so I know who was kind enough to share my post! As it is now, if someone shared her post, ShareThis would know and she wouldn't.
So how do you make sure your Twitter handle is in there?
First, go click the Twitter sharing button on one of your posts. What pops up? If your Twitter handle doesn't appear, you're losing out.
If you're using a plugin, check the settings and look for a place where you can enter your own Twitter handle. If your sharing button is hard-coded, edit the code.
Incidentally, if you're using ShareThis, you won't find the option in your setting. Instead, they explain how to insert your @Name on their FAQ page. (Scroll down until you see "How do I add via @TwitterHandle to the end of Twitter shares from my site?")
If you can't figure it out, I use the Social Sharing Toolkit plugin (they are not paying me to say this, lol) and I can recommend it. If you want to give it a whirl, install and activate it (here's how to install a plugin) and then go to Dashboard –> Settings –> Social Sharing Toolkit. The place to enter your Twitter handle is under the "Content" tab. Don't forget to save your changes!
That's my tip for today. You can read all my Twitter tips here if you'd like. Or you can see a list of all my favorite plugins here.
Hi Amy, nice tip. I am using AddtoAny (they don't pay me either) and I'm pretty satisfied with that plugin. And it does have a place to add your own twitter handle.
Twitter is pretty cool. I like to say, "it is more fun than watching TV!" And I think that is accurate.
Thanks for adding another resource, David.
Thank you for this post! Mine were working just fine, but just because you mentioned clicking on them, I did. My Twitter handle was showing up as @@BeautifulFrugal, which I'm pretty sure wasn't getting me anywhere. I didn't realize I didn't have to add the @ symbol in the Settings, that it would automatically do it for me. Thanks for prompting me to check!
Thanks for the tip! I made the switch.
Yay! I was just looking into this last week…very excited to add this!
thanks Amy! I just installed social sharing toolkit and figured out how to get it set up:) I've been wanting this but wasn't sure how to do it and never took the time to figure it out. you are the best!
Thanks for the tip about that plug-in! I wasn't happy with mine and I made the switch right away.
Great advice! I checked my buttons and everything looks OK. Thanks! You might want to check out my recent blog titled "Nominated for Two Blogging Awards" where I recommended your blog for the great blogging advice and tips!
Thank you so much!
Gosh, I'm grateful to have read this. I'm pretty much behave like an idiot when it comes to anything technical like plug-ins on our site so I don't even know which one it we're using but that same style box comes up when I click the twitter button and our handle is there but it's not automatically shrinking the link? Now that I know I can tell my business partner to see what the what is going on over there. Thanks Amy for helping me catch this!
Amy, I have installed this on both my sites, clicked activate, added my twitter handle in the way you described, chose the buttons I want to appear, saved the changes, and nothing appears under the posts on my site. I have played around and tried everything I can think of. Any idea why Social Sharing Toolkit's not working for me?
Make sure your General Settings are all set correctly as well (next to the Content) tab.
I had the same question, but when I went to General Settings, the Button Location was set at "Do not display" as the default. I had to choose and save where I wanted them to display. Voila! Thanks Amy!
This is very helpful, Amy…I'm hoping it will work with the blogger interface. I'm going now to check it out!!
MakingTheWriteConnections
THANK YOU! Finally, someone speaking up against this issue. Too many sites will add a custom plugin for sharing, but then (as you’ve shown) the tweet will have the plugin developer’s link shortener and then either @sharethis or @addthis or another name for the sharing plugin, and not the author or site. I wish more site owners would take the time to fix their sharing. Plus, not only does it give more trust to the readers/sharers, but it gives the author a chance to see who’s sharing their content (Personally, I’m a huge Buffer fan for sharing and analytics).
I’m definitely going to push this article to my sharing outlets for people to read. Keep up the phenomenal work!
I use Blogger and ShareThis and would love a more customized sharing option. Any ideas on which other social sharing platforms support Blogger?
YES!!! thank you thank you thank you for mentioning this!! drives me crazy!
Great tip, Amy.
I've been using DiggDigg buttons lately (they can start paying me anytime they want to ;o) and I like the option to have the buttons float down the side of my posts. Plus I like that they include a Pin button and a Buffer button.
Just installed the plugin that you suggested, and love all the choices that are with it! Plus, I like that I can make it say my username on tweets.
Thanks, Amy!
Amy, I just installed the plug in you suggested and now my facebook app on the side of my website isn't working. Anyone else experienced problems with this? I've uninstalled and re-installed both with no luck. I know you're a busy women, but if you have any suggestions it'd be appreciated
Hi Tiffany, I just popped over there. Not sure if you removed either or both from the sidebar?
Hi Amy,
if you can, you simply have to edit the code of your sharethis widget.
Where you see
simply edit it like this:
sorry… I mean:
when you see this
<span class="st_twitter_hcount" displayText="Tweet"></span>
simply edit it like this
<span class="st_twitter_hcount" displayText="Tweet" st_via="YourTwitterHandle"></span>
Please check if I did it correctly on my website:-)
Hi Amy,
I love your tips! Thankfully I've read your post on your favorite plugins and already have Social Sharing Toolkit. I like it, checked, and it's easy to put your handle in for twitter. Mine was set up properly, thanks to this post.
Once again, thank you thank you thank you!
Thanks for the tip! I switched because the previous sharing widget was tweeting the site's tagline whenever used the share button, making the tweet go over the 140 character limit. Now I've installed Social Sharing Toolkit, and it's simply tweeting the post URL without the title. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any ideas?
and…I just figured it out myself. lol thanks
Woohoo!
I'm currently using Addtoany by Lockerz and I can't find out for the life of me how to add my twitter handle to the tweets of my posts. I don't know what code to add and where? LOL So frustrating! Maybe you can help?
Hi Tasha, I haven't heard of the Addtoany plugin, but many plugins have installation instructions either in the WordPress plugin directory or on a separate website so I'd look for that. Hope that helps!