It seems like there are a million Twitter plugins and widgets for WordPress, but many are outdated, no longer updated, don’t work in WordPress 2.9.x, or are just plain useless. To help you separate the wheat from the chaff, I’ve compiled this list of ten useful plugins and widget to get your Twitter account playing nicely with your WordPress blog.
- Twitter for WordPress
This plugin can be coded into your theme or used as a widget. It is a very simple plugin that offers customizable CSS for styling.
- TweetMeme
TweetMeme easily allows your blog post or page to be retweeted. It provides a live count of how many times your post/page has been retweeted throughout Twitter, and is a very popular plugin for large brands like TechCrunch and Mashable. The tweets are tracked at TweetMeme.com.
- Lifestream for WordPress
Obviously this plugin does a lot more than a twitter feed, but it offers several key advanced features like the use of custom themes for feed display.
- Tweetroll / Tweeple
These tools give you customizable widgets to show your recent tweets, list your followers, and other stats. There is also an option to monetize your tweets.
- TweetSuite
TweetSuite offers a whole host of features like tweet tracking, most tweeted, and retweets.
- Twitter Widget Pro
Twitter Widget Pro properly handles and displays your Twitter feed in your blog’s sidebar.
- Tweet Stats
Tweet Stats utilizes the TweetBacks plugin (above) to display "Most Tweeted" and "Recently Tweeted" widgets on your blog.
- Tweet This
Tweet This adds "Tweet This" icons to your posts, shortens the post URLs, and automatically tweets new posts. Note: This plugin may or may not work in WordPress 2.9 — there have been mixed reviews on using it with the latest WordPress release. I’ve gotten it to work, but your mileage may vary.
- Tweetable
Tweetable turns your WordPress admin into a Twitter client with status updates, URL shorteners, and the ability to tweet your posts as they are published.
- TwitterCounter
TwitterCounter allows you to easily integrate and customize TwitterCounter.com followers and stats widgets for your sidebar.
Good luck and happy developing!
Nikole Gipps is a punctilious web developer, marketing-minded writer, enthusiastic gardener, improvisational cook, loving wife, and fun mother of two. Read more about her work at That PHP Girl or follow all of her adventures at the nhgnikole mashup.
