If I want to tweet about a particular post at your blog I probably have to go through the following steps: a.) Open the deep link or post I want to specifically send on Twitter b.) Open my Twitter account in a separate browser tab c.) Open a URL shortener in yet a third browser tab d. Copy the link to your blog post over into the URL shortener e.) Use the shortener to create a smaller URL for your post f.) Copy the new smaller URL for your post and paste it into my update window on Twitter g.) Go back to your blog post and copy the title of it h.) Paste that title into my Twitter update window i.) Click "update" on my Twitter page.

At the end of that process I probably need a short nap to recover from all that work...

Ah, buit now there Tweetmeme. If you haven't used Tweetmeme, you should. It's a simple tool that allows your users to eliminate steps A thru h. Instead they get a javascript button to click that say "tweet." They click the button and their Twitter account opens up in a new window, complete with your shortened URL and the post's title. All they have to do is click.

Two clicks: Click "tweet" n the button, wait a couple of seconds for Twitter to open, then click "update." Then no one needs a name.




Daily Blog Tips says that Tweetmeme has doubled their traffic from Twitter. The Tweetmeme button helps track that traffic:

The Tweetmeme button reports how many retweets your posts get, and the cool thing is that they have backward compatibility. In other words, I was able to calculate how many retweets my posts were getting, on average, before I had the button installed.

VentureBeat reported recently that the Tweetmeme button was getting used 50 million times a day. That makes it hard to ignore.

It's possible to tweak the Tweetmeme button a little and customize it for your blog post. That works well on WordPress. (They also have a plugin for Tweetmeme). My Blogger site doesn't seem to want to let me use the tweaks, but the button works. (A help post at Tweetmeme on Blogger wasn't very helpful for me.)

The verdict is still out on my blog here, which uses Moveable Type.


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