Twitter is one of the best tools to let your followers know whenever you publish a new post in WordPress. If you have an active Twitter following, then you may want to automatically send tweets from your WordPress site whenever you publish a new post. In this article we will show you how to automatically send a tweet when you update or publish a new post in WordPress.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
First thing you need to do is install and activate WP to Twitter plugin. After activating the plugin, go to Settings » WP to Twitter to configure plugin settings.
Creating a Twitter App for Your WordPress Site
To make use of Twitter API, Twitter now requires authentication using OAuth protocol. In order to use this plugin, you would need to create a Twitter App for your website. Go to Twitter Apps Registration page and sign in with your Twitter account. Next click on Create New App button to register your app. On the next page, simply enter a name for your app, a little description, your website URL and then use the same URL as callback URL for the app.
Twitter will now create an app for you and will take you to your app page. Now you need to give this app read-write access to your Twitter account. To do that, simply click on the Settings tab, and scroll down to Application Type section. Under Access field choose Read and Write and update your Twitter app settings.
Next you need to go back to your Twitter app’s Details page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Create My Access Token button. Twitter will now generate your access token. Below your access token keys, it will also show you access level, make sure it is Read and Write.
At this time, you have all the keys you need to authenticate your site with Twitter. Copy your consumer key, consumer secret, access token, and access token secret keys and paste them in WP to Twitter settings. Once you do that, simply click on connect to Twitter to authenticate your site.
Setting up WP to Twitter
After authenticating your site with Twitter, the next step is to configure WP to Twitter settings for your tweets. On the plugin’s settings page, scroll down to Basic Settings section.
The first option under basic settings is to choose a URL shortening service provider if you use one. It will also show you options for each post type. If you are using custom post types, then those post types would appear here as well. By default, it will show posts, pages, and links. You can simply click the check-boxes for post types you want to tweet.
WP to Tweet can automatically send a tweet whenever a new post is published or updated. You can set your own tweet message for outgoing tweets. Once you are done with configuration, save your settings.
Basically this is all you need to set up automatic tweets for new posts in WordPress. However, the plugin comes with some advanced options which will allow you to use WordPress tags as hashtags for your tweets. You can also exclude categories from automatic tweeting, allow individual authors to send tweets, and enable Google Analytics tracking.
Under the Author Settings you can check the box next to ‘Authors have individual Twitter accounts’ which will allow other authors on your site to add their Twitter handles in their profiles. Under author settings you can also choose user roles which will have permission to add their twitter information, send tweets, or over-ride default tweet settings.
To Tweet or Not to Tweet?
Once you have setup WP to Twitter to automatically send tweets, you can still over ride these settings for individual posts on the post edit screen. You can choose to tweet or not to tweet a post, or even replace the default template with a custom tweet for the post.
The problem with automatic sharing and tweeting is that sometimes you may want to remove a post or change it. Sometimes you may even accidentally publish a post which was not ready for publishing. If you set up auto-tweet, then it’s too late for that. The word is out there with your tweet. To avoid this, we recommend scheduling WordPress posts for social media using BufferApp which would allow you to share on all your social media accounts when you publish a new post. You can also use Floating Social Bar and share your posts after publishing.
We hope this article helped you send automatic tweets when you publish new posts in WordPress. For feedback and questions, you can leave a comment or join us on Twitter or Google+.
Hi,
I have a WordPress events listing website and I have set up an auto poster to tweet the event.
is there a way to send a retweet that eventorganizer or venue to let them know about the WordPress post
Is there a standard shortcode that is used?
Thanks in advance
(I have already been able to use shotcode to set up event title and URL in the auto tweet)
Thank you very much for your post with the step-by-step manual. With the hints in your manual it was really easy to connect my blog with twitter.
Can we get event if new posts has been published on wordpress to call some function or api.
These directions do not work anymore – new Twitter formats and requirements
This tutorial is written at too high a level for me. How do I activate the plug-in? Where am I supposed to find the Settings button? Is it Twitter Settings or WordPress settings? Where do I get my Access token? There are a lot of assumptions here about beginners’ knowledge that don’t seem to apply to me.
Is there any other twitter plugin that you could recommend apart from WP to Twitter? Some that could also include a picture with a new post? And for free!? Thanks
I try this plugin but error: 401 Unauthorized…. I have read/write permission active…
Thanks a lot for help
Is the ‘author has own Twitter account’ option available in the free version?
This is a great article . I really like this post and the simplicity of it’s implementation. Personally, I use IFTTT to query a handful of feeds from my site to update Twitter.
What’s the benefit of using this versus the Publicize feature in WP that also allows you to automatically share your posts on Twitter?
Publicize feature is only available to users on WordPress.com or those using JetPack plugin.
I really like this post and the simplicity of it’s implementation. Personally, I use IFTTT to query a handful of feeds from my site to update Twitter.
While Tweeting your latest post is a common request among “bloggers” and web site owners, something many web site owners don’t think about is the impact if you have your own email newsletter (and you should be collecting email names and building your own in-house list)!
IF you Tweet every new post, no one needs to subscribe to your newsletter!
If you are both Tweeting and asking for NL subscribes, you could be hurting your own goals, so it would be best to carefully evaluate which option is better for you. Which route you go also depends upon your site goals and purpose, of course.
All I’m saying is to carefully evaluate IF Tweeting every post is the best process for YOU!
Karen we do agree that may be not every post needs to be tweeted. However, we do not agree with the assumption that tweeting the same posts which you are going to include in your newsletter is in any way less effective. Twitter streams give your tweet a very limited exposure time. As soon as a user’s timeline gets new tweets from other people they follow, your tweet will most likely get buried, reducing your chances of getting noticed or clicked. On the other hand, repetition of your brand name, post title, and your updates, help you build brand recognition, trust, and authority. For more exposure we recommend building an email list.
A Good tut! thanks you so much!