Twittley is Twitter tool that allows your blog/website visitors to easily tweet your posts to their Twitter feed, just like Tweetmeme does it. Twittley however, also offers Digg-like features on the Twittley website. Just like you can vote on articles on Digg, by digging them, you can vote on articles on Twittley by tweeting them.
Where Tweetmeme simply aggregates and counts the number of tweets a post has received, Twittley takes advantage of a proprietary algorithm based on factors such as followers, frequency of tweets etc. That also means that with Twittley, each Twitter user has a certain karma associated with their account, to determine how much your votes are worth.
Twittley also makes it very easy for visitors to tweet a post, all you have to do is click on the retweet button. Go ahead and give it a go, it’s free, so try it out:
Twittley Shuffle Colors
Twittley has a WordPress plugin and soon they will release a new version that automatically shuffles the color of the Twittley button. The goal here is to decrease “blindness” with your visitors. Just like with ad blindness, your readers will eventually begin to ignore your social media buttons because they are at the same place all the time and they always look the same. By shuffling the colors, you increase the chances of readers noticing the button.
The WordPress plugin with shuffle colors is not available yet, but TechPatio was lucky enough to get a preview of it and test it out. And I must say, I like it. There’s only one thing I don’t like about it and that’s the placement of the button. It only offers 3 options: Before your post, after you post, or both.
I use a totally different place for my social media sharing buttons. It’s below the post, yes, but their placement is special (scroll down a little bit to see them, there’s Digg, StumbleUpon, Twittley and Facebook).
Installing Twittley Button
If you’re a WordPress blog owner, it’s really simple, just search for the Twittley plugin and install it. That’s pretty much it.
Otherwise you can use one of the javascript options and manually insert the Twittley button in a position where you want it – or if you’re not on a WordPress blog.
Unfortunately the manual installation method doesn’t support shuffle colors (yet), but there’s a workaround for that. Until the WordPress plugin supports manually placement of the button, I simply added this little bit of CSS to the button style option in the plugin settings:
visibility: hidden; position: absolute;
That hides the button on my post while still displaying the one I inserted manually (below my post) – this one will now shuffle colors.
Of course, if Twittley ever start to support manual placement directly in the Twittley plugin, this workaround is not necessary.
Great Support
Personally I experienced a few issues with the Twittley button which caused me to go back to Tweetmeme, but the Twittley support was very fast to solve them and in case something “came up” causing the button not to work, it now displays a nice “error” message inside the button instead of just a plain text based server message going something like “internal server error”.
The problem I had with the Twittley button was when my blog titles either contained double quotes (“) or the dollar sign ($). For some reason, that made the Twittley button stop working. But no longer – Twittley fixed it, thank you 🙂
Now It’s Your Turn
While some bloggers continue to offer Tweetmeme to their readers, in addition to Twittley, I decided to make the move 100% to Twittley. I understand that I might lose a few retweets from the Twitter users who prefers to use Tweetmeme, but eventually I’m sure Twittley will become as popular and we’ll start seeing it more and more.
So now it’s your turn – go get the Twittley button and take it for a spin, then I’ll head on over to the Twittley community and see what’s hot right now 🙂
UPDATE – November 9th: The new Twittley plugin for WordPress has been released, now everybody can go get some shuffle colors for their Twittley buttons 🙂
Cool, Will try it soon. The buttons looks really good.
.-= Sahil Kotak´s last blog ..6 Mind Blowing Features Of Google Wave =-.
Yeah they do look good, don’t they? It’s especially great with the shuffle colors, so let’s hope they release them sooner rather than later 🙂
Good luck!
Nice tutorial . I am also big fan of twitter and I have installed tweetly button on my blog. Yes twitter is one big marketing tool.
.-= chandan@work at home´s last blog ..Top posts on work at home opportunties =-.
Sounds good Chandan – best of luck to you and your Twittley experience 🙂
HI Klaus what the tool you are using for getting more follower?
something new for me, maybe gonna try it hope it place well in post.. 😀
Hi Izzat. Some people prefer to have it at the top of a post, others at the bottom. I placed mine at the bottom because that’s where people are when they’ve finished reading your post. When they just finished reading, I doubt the first thing that comes to mind is “lets scroll up and see if I can share this with somebody”.
But if the share/tweet buttons are there, in their field of vision, some might click…
Feel free to let me know how it works out for you 🙂
I just tried clicking on your button and I got an error message after allowing it access to my Twitter account:
LOG
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/twittley/public_html/button/vote.php:11) in /home/twittley/public_html/success.php on line 53
It looks nice, but I guess they still need to work on the code or something.
.-= Anne @ b6s.net´s last blog ..Twitter Do and Don’t List for Webmasters =-.
Hi Anne. Can I talk you into giving it another try? It seems to be working as it has received some retweets already. I’ve never seen that error before myself though, so hopefully it’s just something temporary.
I did have problems with the Twittley button a while back, but it’s now up and running on my blog again, I do prefer it to TweetMeme as Twittley has sent me a fair bit of traffic 😉
.-= Karen @ Blazing Minds´s last blog ..Avoiding Twitter Phishing Scams in Direct Messages =-.
I’m glad it’s working for you again – and it looks really nice on your site too 🙂
I’m one of those that have been using TweetMeme RT button still and I have heard very interesting things about Twittley. In addition to what you have informed here, that leaves me no other choice but to give it a try. You are heading off to see what’s hot and I in turn will be heading off to get the button. Thanks
.-= DiTesco´s last blog ..Forget Making Money Online – It Sucks #1 =-.
Yup, you should definitely give it a try. I think a site like yours would find it easy to get on the ‘popular’ page (frontpage) of Twittley. Like, I’m there now – with this post – so shouldn’t be too hard for you either.
I was going to write a post about Twittley and the new features and bux fixes, but you n ailed it with this post bro.
I have been using Twittley off and on for a while now, the new changes might make my switch from the ever failing Tweetmeme plugin.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Sunday Smash 25 Blogs, Bloggers and Blogging Tips =-.
John – you have much more readers than I do, so just because I did, there’s no reason for you not to 🙂 I’m sure we can both reach wider than if only one of us posted about it.
Really an interesting site, though never heard of it before. I like the color changing capability. Lot many times, the share buttons are ignored
.-= John Samuel´s last blog ..Happy Birthday Firefox! It’s 5 years of Happy Browsing =-.
Unfortunately I’m not getting that many retweets on most of my posts so I can’t really say if the shuffle colors are making a huge difference or not, but I’m sure they don’t make it worse 🙂
Huh, that’s a cool idea.
Tired of Tweetmeme where most links there are from Mashable. It’s not a fair place to play with Twitter. Hope Twittley is better and I’ll give it a try.
.-= Phaoloo´s last blog ..6 Effective Tools To Check Your Site For Broken Links =-.
I think that Mashable is in bed with Tweetmeme. Twittley.com is a way more sophisticated site where anybody can get to the front page through their point system based on your Twitter followers and stats as well as your participation on Twittley. Some day people will figure out how great Twittley’s system truly is especially for driving traffic and exposure to a blog or website. Twittley has a wide variety of articles from various websites hitting the front page and is a much more fair system for users submitting good quality articles, news and links.
.-= Steve´s last blog ..Dean Graziosi Online Media Website and Videos =-.
Sorry to bust in OT but I just wanted to say hi. I just saw you over at Extreme John’s (commentluv is awesome ain’t it?) and have now subscribed. 🙂
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..He/She Has Unsubscribed – Should You Ask Why? =-.
Hi Dennis. Thanks for stopping by and taking time to comment.
OT is okay as long as you retweeted this post 😀
… oh I love how own “comment policy” at your site says “Comment On Topic” and then you go off-topic here 😉
Anyway – nice to have you around and yes, CommentLuv is indeed awesome!
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..iJustine Shows How To Shoot A Video (1 Chick, Lots Of Tips!) =-.
OK so your reply is all sorts of embarrassing for me. lol
I’m not currently on Twitter, otherwise I would…not possible to retweet without an account, is it? Now that would be an interesting feature. 🙂
“oh I love how own “comment policy” at your site says “Comment On Topic” and then you go off-topic here” – now that is a bit embarrassing ain’t it? LOL
I’m not too worried, I figured the knowledge of another subscriber was a good OT break. 😉
Thank you also, it’s good to know at least ONE person has now actually read my comment policy! LOL
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..He/She Has Unsubscribed – Should You Ask Why? =-.
Nice Icons..However i like the style of adding image in blog ..like ur site..which plugin u used for this?
.-= ankit @ All About India´s last blog ..Famous Tourist Places in Mumbai =-.
Hi Ankit. What pictures exactly are you referring to, cause inserting pictures in a blog post itself is standard in WordPress?
nice 🙂