I have been avoiding putting the new Twitter retweet button on my site for a few reasons. For starters, it uses the t.co shortener instead of giving the option of getting to use the URL shortener of your choice like you can with the Tweetmeme button. And there are no color options, like there are with the Topsy retweet button.
Main Benefit to Using the Twitter Retweet Button
So what does the official Twitter retweet button offer that the other ones don’t? How about the ability to increase your followers? As you have probably seen by now, when you retweet using the official Twitter button, sometimes you get a followup screen that gives you recommended users to follow.
How to Install the Twitter Retweet Button
The button is simple to customize. You can use the wizard to fill in the important information on this page and it will generate the code you will need to put on your webpages.
For WordPress users, you can incorporate the following code into your theme templates (or custom_functions.php for Thesis users).
<script src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script><div> <a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="<?php the_permalink() ?>" data-counturl="<?php the_permalink() ?>" data-text="<?php the_title(); ?>" data-via="yourtwitterhandle" data-related="yourtwitterhandle">Tweet</a></div>Just replace yourtwitterhandle with your Twitter username, and you’re all set – the tweets will be sent via you, and people will be recommended to follow you after they send the tweet. Learn more about these properties, as well as additional customizations on the developer’s page.
For Your Mobile Theme
If you have (and you should) a separate theme for your mobile website, I would suggest using the Tweetmeme button instead of this one. Maybe it’s just my phone, but I have noticed that the Tweetmeme button works a little better on mobile browsers than the official Twitter button. So if you have a separate them, go with that one instead!
Your Choice of Retweet Buttons
Have you switched over to the official Twitter button? Or do you still prefer one of the others out there? Please share your preferences in the comments below.
