It’s kind of amazing how much value Twitter has slowly but steadily been able to add to its platform and tweets given the compact nature of Twitter. One of the newest features is called the Twitter Card. What the Twitter Card allows you to do is to include additional text and an image along with your 140 character tweet. Having this extra information gives your followers a deeper view of what they will learn if they click on your link.
This extra data (and image) is viewed when clicking on “View Summary” in the bottom right corner of a tweet read on Twitter.com.
Here’s what it looks like on the Twitter iPhone app after tapping on the tweet.
Implementing the use of Twitter cards for your blog basically comes down to 2 steps:
- Validating your site with Twitter
- Setting up the JM Twitter Cards plugin in your website.
Validating your Blog with Twitter
To validate your site with Twitter, you’ll need to decide which type of Twitter card you want to use, and have a published blog post link ready to copy and paste into Twitter’s Card Validation tool.
The Twitter card validation process begins with your selection of your Twitter card type.
After choosing your card type, you’ll switch from the “Try Cards” tab to the “Validate & Apply” tab. Grab the link to a published blog post to use for the validation process.
A preview of your Twitter card will be shown to you. Click on the “Request Approval” button on the left.
Make sure to complete all fields in the form that pops up on your screen.
Although Twitter states that your validation is pending approval and it may take a few weeks, we received an instant email response from Twitter.
Setting up the JM Twitter Cards plugin
Search for and install the JM Twitter Cards plugin. The JM Twitter Cards coordinates with Yoast and All in One SEO plugins. If you already use the Yoast SEO plugin, you can set up Twitter cards within it, but you are limited to choosing Summary Card or Summary Card with Large Image.
Visit the plugin’s Settings –> General page.
Complete the fields on the General tab.
Note: This plugin also has multi-author capabilities as well as built-in analytics.
Another note: If you add Open Graph data to your blog posts, be sure to mark that field as “yes”.
After saving your changes, visit a blog post to locate the fields this plugin adds to each post. Scroll down to locate the JM Twitter Cards plugin fields.
You’ll want to specify an image URL for use in your Twitter card.
I typically complete the JM Twitter Card fields when I’m working on the SEO and Open Graph fields. It’s my last step before scheduling a blog post to publish.
Then once this new post is published and tweeted (by anyone, not just your business Twitter account), you’ll see the “View Summary” link in the tweet, and when clicked, can see all the hard work you put into your Twitter Card.
On social media there a lot of simple tools like the twitter card that can get you a little more attention. The great part is that the extra work pays of in visitors new followers and in some cases even in more engagement with your audience.