Stacy Kinney

Like caramel and chocolate, some things just go well together and nothing epitomizes this sentiment more than integrating the social network juggernaut Twitter with the blogging software giant WordPress. There are a number of Twitter tools on the market that, when combined with WordPress, will turn your blog into a marketing magnet that attracts readers and followers.

Here are a few free Twitter tools you can integrate easily on your WordPress blog to optimize your social networking activities.

1. Twitter Tools - This WordPress Twitter plugin provides a couple of cool and useful functions. The main one is the ability to automatically tweet your blog posts to your Twitter account. Other options include using Bit.ly to shorten URLs, add hashtags to the tweets and to post a daily or weekly digest of your Twitter tweets on your blog.

2. Tweet This Plugin – This WordPress Twitter plugin adds a Retweet button to each blog post so visitors can easily tweet your posts through their Twitter accounts. You can also set the plugin to automatically shorten URLs and to send new and upcoming blog posts to your Twitter account. The nice thing about this plugin is it keeps track of how many people retweeted your post using the button so you can see at a glance how popular the article is.

3. TwitterLink Comments - The producers of CommentLuv also created a WordPress Twitter plugin that allows a commenter to add a link to their Twitter profile each time they leave a comment. Let’s face, if people see they can get an extra link that will promote their projects, they will usually leave a comment.

4. Twitter Widget - Twitter Widget by TwitterCounter is not a specific WordPress plugin but it might be nice to have on a blog. This widget tracks Twitter users who most frequently visit your blog. This is nice for creating a sense of community and for rewarding active users with a little publicity.

5. WordPress Greetbox - This isn’t a Twitter tool per se but it still is a great plugin. This tool detects where your visitor came from and greets them with a personal message that you define in the admin panel. So for example, if your visitor came to your blog by clicking a link on Twitter, they will be greeted with a custom message that says something like, “Hi Twitter user, thanks for stopping by my blog”. This is great for personally welcoming people to your home on the net.

There are many more Twitter tools for WordPress that you can use to create community and to help you manage your social networking. You are only limited by your creativity and imagination.

Twitter is just one way I drive targeted leads to my website. To learn how to use Twitter to generate business gain access to other marketing tools that will explode your sales go to RockYourBusinessOnline.com. Sign up for my free email tutorial on why 97% of home based businesses fail and what you can do to be a part of the 3% that achieve personal and financial success.

(photo credit: Mr. Boombust)

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