Cormac Moylan

Short URL Twitter Frustrations

This morning I went looking for a Twitter plugin for WordPress that will do a number of things. This shouldn’t be too much trouble, I thought to myself, since both Twitter and WordPress has thousands upon thousands of plugins.

How wrong was I? Very.

I can’t believe I can’t find a plugin that:

Posts new blog posts to your Twitter. Uses a URL shortener such as Bit.ly with your Username/API. Allows you to automatically add Google Analytics campaign tracking parameters to your Bit.ly link. Allows you to schedule when you wish to have your tweet tweeted. Allows you to write your tweet from the ‘Add New Post’ page within WordPress.

The above plugin doesn’t seem to exist! I have spent more than four hours researching, searching, installing, and playing with tonnes of plugins.

I guess this means I’m going to have to get the above plugin developed. Unless of course you know a plugin that does the above?

On another note; how annoying is Twitter’s Tweet Button? I use Bit.ly because it is awesome. I can get great stats and insights into how people engage with my short links. But Twitter forces you to use their own crumby URL shortener if you want to use the official Tweet Button. Twitter either need to allow you to use a 3rd party URL shortening service or ramp up their short service with great analytics.

So frustrating sometimes dealing with Twitter.