I’ve been experimenting for the last few weeks with a new Retweet button combination on both this blog and my other one and so far I think it’s proven to be the best one I’ve used to date.
I’m using a combination of two WordPress plugins to achieve this: Backtype Tweetcount and Su.pr WordPress Plugin.
Backtype, which has another plugin for robust social media commenting, has knocked it out of the park with their Tweetcount plugin; it’s one of the most customizable retweet button on the market today.
Your other option, of course, is Tweetmeme’s button and WordPress plugin which does a good job as well.
Not only can I stylize it the way I’d like it, I can obviously put it anywhere I want (manually) and choose a host of other options in terms of what shortening service I’d like to use, what I’d like to have as leading text, and more.
You can see that I’ve chosen the simply white version on ChurchCrunch and gave it a small orange feel on Human3rror. They have a large and small version to play with.
Check out the options and read more goodness after the jump:
What I picked was Su.pr as my shortener of choice, for a number of reasons:
1. I can host the URLs on my own blog. Previously I had been using the ?p= way of doing things and it was just getting a big ugly to look at. In addition, I still wanted to be able to have that brand name recognition in the link. I’ve outlined my reasoning behind that here.
2. The chance at getting more traffic through StumbleUpon is too good to pass up. As you can see from this post, one of the most significant traffic days came from SU. I’ll be honest though, that was the end of my SU traffic-love so far; I haven’t seen much of a return since, but Su.pr offers more than just traffic. See #3.
3. Analytics. As you can see by the screenshot above and below I can track clickthroughs and traffic generated by direct and organic SU’s. Not only that I can get recommendations on best time to post. That’s pretty good stuff:
4. Customization settings are generous. Just like Backtype’s I get a lot of options:
Now, I’ve gone ahead and combined the two plugins and their functionality to achieve a happy mix of reporting and URL shortening with added bonuses of potential new eyes (traffic) and hosting them on my own blog (brand awareness).
So far I’m really happy with my choice and I love the flexibility and customization options that these two give me. There’s almost nothing more that I’d like to see from the two as it stands today (which is saying a lot) so bravo to the developers behind the tech. It’s not perfect but it’s very reasonable.
Finally, to cap it all off, with the recent news of Tr.im going prehistoric (and then pulling a savior-like resurrection) [Editor’s Note: And disappearing, again. // July 2011] it reminds many that putting your faith (literally) in a URL shortener is a big deal; I don’t see StumbleUpon going anywhere, so I feel safe using their product long-term.
What are you using for your URL shortening and why?
[Image from Deb]
CoffeeWithChris says
Been trying to make this work since yesterday morning… Su.pr just isn't synchronizing with my plugin settings. I've tried it with the plugin and with the php file and .htaccess changes. Hmmm…
human3rror says
r u trying to host on your own blog?
CoffeeWithChris says
yeah
human3rror says
There's a small line of code at the very end of the code in the plugin that you have to “uncomment”.
CoffeeWithChris says
I guess I need some more coffee, can't find what I need to change.
Kevin Bowers says
You need to uncomment a line in the Back Type plugin, not the Supr plugin…Search for "uncomment" in there. 😉
human3rror says
throw this in the forums. we'll talk.
stephenbateman says
Yes! This is exactly what I need. Su.pr is great, but I've been copy/pasting links into Su.pr, which just feels a little too 20th century.
Thanks
Steven Rossi says
I've been a big fan of Supr since it was released, but I haven't really used it all that much. That plugin seems like it'll come in handy.
Jim says
adding this to the list
rodlie says
So glad you posted on this! I was just going to ask you. I have a su.pr account, and I like it. What I don't like is the ugly toolbar at the top. Because of this I've been using tr.im. It's clean. I get good analytics. Do you know how I can remove the su.pr toolbar? Is there a good reason for not doing so?
human3rror says
yeah, you can on the settings.
Calum Henderson says
su.pr is great!
Custom short URLs are amazing.
What are your thoughts on using the Stumble Upon toolbar, do you think it will alienate some readers?
John Saddington says
i used it for a while but it didn’t bring much extra traffic and the bar was annoying long term.