Tweets about this, tweets about that, tweets about just about everything are available on Twitter . But sometimes you come across one that you just have to share on your blog, so you take a screenshot and paste the picture on your page. But wait, if you can embed a YouTube video on a page then why not a tweet?
Now you can. Twitter has solved the problem of copying and pasting pictures of tweets by launching a tool to actually embed tweets on a page.
Blackbird Pie allows you to enter the URL of a Twitter status (found by clicking on the timestamp of a tweet, i.e. "2 hours ago") and then generates an HTML code to embed the tweet on a page. Once you paste the code onto your site, the tweet will automatically incorporate the font and other styling that may be present on the page. Below are examples of 1) screenshot of Twitter status, and 2) embedded Twitter status.
So far, the only noticeable downsides of the new tool are the "flaky" functionality and the long-winded code.
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Key Marketing Takeaways
Allowing users to embed tweets will change the way people use Twitter to relay ideas. Since people have started highlighting tweets as quotes , they have come up with quick fixes to place the tweet in a blog or on a website, either through copying and pasting the words or inserting a cropped screenshot. Here are the ways in which an embedded tweet will differ from the current methods:
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L
inks tweets back to original author.
Embedding a tweet will include a link back to the Twitter user (as shown above). This will allow the author to receive credit for their posts as well.
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Makes content searchable.
As opposed to a screenshot, the words in an embedded tweet will be able to be picked up by search engines. Since search engine bots cannot read images or index the tweet inside a picture, the introduction of embedded tweets will increase the likelihood of appearing on Google and ranking for specific keywords.
- Creates dynamic content. Taking a picture of a tweet makes the content static and places the editing power in the publishers' hands. However, with embedded tweets, the content will remain on Twitter and will therefore become dynamic and reactive to any changes in the user's status (i.e. will delete itself if user removes the tweet).
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Katie Martz 11:13 AM on May 05, 2010
I'm not sure I understand this. Forgive me, I am new to the Twitter/blog deal. So by converting the Tweet into an HTML code, and embedding that code onto my website, will my Tweets automatically update on my website?
I guess I don't understand this new feature.
Any help?
Christine Fife 11:45 AM on May 05, 2010
Ooooo! What a lovely little feature, especially for blog writing. I often see a tweet I'd like to comment on in a blog post, particularly from tweetchats when you want to reference a point someone makes in a discussion.
Katie Martz, no, it doesn't have anything to do with embedding your own tweets on your site. That is also something that is great to do and can easily be done with RSS feeds and other tools, but this is talking about grabbing a tweet that someone else has written and giving them credit for it when you embed that one tweet on your site/blog with the link directly back to their Twitter feed and the location in the stream from which it came.
Shannon 11:50 AM on May 05, 2010
Hi Katie,
Blackbird Pie is a tool that helps you "quote" what people are saying on Twitter. Say someone says something you agree/disagree with, and you want to include the Tweet in a blog post. You can grab the URL of the Tweet, put it in Blackbird Pie and get the HTML code you need to embed the Tweet.
Blackbird Pie doesn't stream your own Tweets. However, Twitter has code that you can use to generate a Twitter feed (check out http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets). The feed automatically updates itself and displays your most recent Tweets on your website, blog, etc.
Hope this helps!
John J Antognoli 12:56 PM on May 05, 2010
Of course it all depends on if Google decides that a a link between that tweet on your page and that twitter person is of value... That remains to be seen?
If i embedded a tweet from someone, Google could say that makes the tweet more valuable because if i liked it, someone else might too. And they might consider the value of that tweet higher if the originator of the tweet has a higher number of followers. Google would give greater consideration to my blog, to the tweet and the original author when returning a subsequent search result.
Google might not give value to that tweet because nothing could stop me from finding high profile authors and embedding tweet after tweet to give more value to my site organically. In the normal net, they solve that riddle by weighing in reciprocal links, only there are not really reciprocal links between a twitter author and other sites- Well, unless of course i could get that twitter author to use my URL in a tweet - but again, you can see some methods of being able to game the algorithm that way; in addition, search engines need to rely on some sort of permanence to links, which Twitter really doesn't have because the speed and volume the tweets flow.
Totally makes my head spin...
Aaron 1:50 PM on May 05, 2010
This seems kind of stupid.
Costa Walcott 1:58 PM on May 05, 2010
Something to keep in mind though is that these new embedded tweets don't look very good in RSS feeds.
Reading this post in Google Reader, all I saw was the tweet in plaintext, whereas the image version looks the same in a feed reader or on the site.
Katie 2:08 PM on May 05, 2010
I would almost have to agree with Aaron on this. But I guess I don't fully understand the benefits of this feature.
How is this different than a RT?
And how is this more efficient than simply copying someone's Tweet and pasting it into your blog?
Forgive me for my lack of understanding this feature.
Ann Bevans 5:07 PM on May 05, 2010
"Flaky" functionality? Yikes! That sounds like a reason to stay away for a while.
@autoburst 10:43 PM on May 05, 2010
Tried it on my WordPress site and it did not work out too well, not even with Hana Code. I like the idea though.
Danusia 4:47 AM on May 06, 2010
Hmm, I think I might wait to use this feature then until more/all of the glitches have been ironed out - seems some of you have had problems with it. In theory it should be a good idea to make displaying tweets better.
I love HubSpot blog posts, but I have a question, do you really need to publish the spam comments? Its frustrating reading a thread of useful input and conversation and then seeing something like the trainers one!