Since its inception, Twitter has revolutionized the way we communicate. It’s quick, concise, and a great way to connect with your customers, prospects, and clients. With nearly 230 million daily active users, Twitter is a powerful way to amplify your message and showcase your brand.
Customers sometimes discover your business on Twitter, but often they end up on your website from a search engine or other source rather than a Tweet. A key to maximizing discoverability on Twitter? Place a Twitter feed on your website and show your Tweet activity to your website visitors.
Adding an embedded Twitter widget to your website helps create a cohesive online identity and makes it easy for people to follow your online conversations in one place. It can increase engagement from website visitors and Twitter followers, plus it’s a great way to keep your website fresh and relevant.
5 Types of Twitter Feeds You Can Embed on a Website
You can embed a Twitter timeline feed or button on your website using the Twitter widget embed tool (listed below). Or, there are several different ways to display Twitter posts on your site including:
- Of Twitter embedding tool (free)
- Plugins and integrations with your web hosting company (not always free)
- Third-party tools or widgets like Taggbox (usually not free)
We’ll expand on each of these in a minute.
First, we’ll present an overview of the different types of Twitter feeds and buttons you can embed by pulling embed code from Twitter. They include:
1. Feeds embedded in Tweets
A Tweet embed allows you to display a single Tweet on your website.
2. Built-in profile timeline feeds
A profile timeline displays Tweets from a single Twitter account on your website. You also have the option of embedding Follow and Mention buttons for a Twitter profile.
3. Embedded List Feeds
You can embed a Twitter list feed directly on your website, which shows all posts related to a curated list. Twitter lists allow Twitter users to organize a group of accounts by topic. For example, you can create a Twitter list of industry thought leaders and embed it on your website’s resources page.
4. Built-in @handle feeds
With handle feeds, you have the option to embed a Twitter user’s profile (yours or someone else’s) on your website. This is a way to enter your profile feed without needing the exact profile URL (you just need the handle). Setting the handle also allows you to add Follow, Mention or Hashtag buttons.
5. Built-in #hashtag button
This is a button and not a feed. It has one function: to enable your website visitors to tweet about a given hashtag from your website. Users simply click on the Hashtag button and a draft Tweet opens with the hashtag included.
3 quick ways to embed a Twitter feed on your website
Now for the fun stuff – three easy ways to display a Twitter feed on your site! You can:
1. Use Twitter’s free tool to manually enter your feed
Get the embed code from Twitter’s embed tool by navigating to Twitter embed page and enter the following in the form field:
- A Twitter link URL (for a list, profile or Tweet)
- Handling your business on Twitter (eg @SproutSocial)
- A hashtag (eg, #SproutSocial)
Once you’ve filled out the embed form, Twitter provides you with an embed code that you can copy and paste into your website. The code for a Twitter handle (eg, @SproutSocial) looks like this:
How to embed Twitter feeds in 2 easy steps
Step 1. Add the URL of the Tweet you want to enter in the form field.
Step 2. Choose the type of embedded screen—either a Twitter timeline or a button screen. Timeline displays the Tweet (or list of Tweets) on your website as Twitter content appears on its own feed. The Twitter button allows your visitors to interact with you on Twitter without leaving your website. The available button types are:
- Follow (allows users to follow your Twitter account)
- @Mention (allows users to send a Tweet to your Twitter handle)
- #Hashtag (allows users to tweet about a hashtag)
Not all options are available with all resources. Some feed types have no button options (or less than three) and some only allow one button. Here’s a breakdown of what’s available by feed type:
Tweet
profile
Example of profile feed entry:
Twitter follow button embed example:
Twitter mention button embed example:
list
List feed input example:
Gloves
- Syntax: @SproutSocial
- Options: Timeline feed + 3 buttons (Follow, Mention and Hashtag)
- See above for examples of the Follow/Mention button
Twitter hashtag button embed example:
Hashtag
- Syntax: #SproutSummit
- Options: Hashtag button insertion only (see example above)
A note about embedded buttons: When a user clicks an embedded button, it opens a new Twitter browser window where they can perform the corresponding action (eg, send a Tweet using the hashtag your account, follow your account or mention your account in their Tweet ).
2. Use a WordPress plug-in to embed Twitter feeds
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world and offers many plugins that make it easy for webmasters to display Twitter feeds and other content from social media channels. And once you install a plug-in, you don’t need to worry about entering any HTML code.
Smash Balloon is a good WordPress plugin for Twitter if you want a lot of customization options. It offers feed integrations with most major social media platforms. The plugin also allows site owners to embed a resource into a WordPress page, post or widget.
The Twitter feed automatically adopts your website style and allows you to customize feed layouts, filter out unwanted terms and create carousels. There is a free version with limited features. The paid version starts at $49 per year.
Feed Them Social is a solid alternative to Smash Balloon. There are free and premium options, with the premium version starting at $50 per year for a single domain. The plugin integrates with four social networks (including Twitter) and can place multiple feeds on the same page. Add multiple feeds, embed buttons, embed recent Tweets within a feed, and customize the feed’s appearance.
Pro tip: When considering a plugin, make sure it is up-to-date and compatible with the latest version of WordPress and has a large number of active installs and positive reviews.
3. Use a third-party Twitter feed tool
Third-party tools like TagBoxx and Flockler focus on bringing user-generated content (UGC) from social platforms to owned environments such as your website. They tend to offer more powerful customization and integration options than free tools and are great for displaying visual content.
Tagboxx offers an integrated social widget that allows users to curate and publish social feeds from a wide selection of social platforms, (including Twitter). Users can set up and customize Twitter feeds using hashtags, account profiles, and handles. There is a free version with minimal features, so you can give it a test drive. The basic plan starts at $39 per month.
Flockler’s embed tool makes it easy to pull Twitter feeds into your website. Users can create grids, mobile carousels and “walls” of content from Twitter posts, which can be customized using hashtags, accounts and pages from social media platforms. Pricing starts at $47 per month. While there is no free version, you can try the tool with a 14-day free trial.
5 Benefits of Embedding Your Twitter Feed
Adding a Twitter feed to your website is an effective show vs. tell approach when communicating brand identity and authenticity. There are many other benefits to displaying Twitter posts and other social media content on your website including:
- Converting Website Visitors to Twitter Followers: Send your Twitter page visitors to Twitter, where they can follow you from your profile, Tweets, and mentions.
- Increase reach and engagement on Twitter: More visitors can share, like or retweet content on Twitter from your site.
- Building trust and credibility: Build social proof and increase trust in your brand, especially when you share positive reviews, customer feedback and current news.
- Increasing brand loyalty: Create a more interactive and personal experience for site visitors to engage them with your brand.
- Converting more website visitors: Showcase customer testimonials, product reviews, awards and company news, all of which can help motivate visitors to convert.
Manage Twitter engagement with Sprout Social
Embedding Twitter feeds is a great way to capture new audiences and show you’re active in digital conversations. Whether you’re using Twitter as a channel for customer care or to promote your brand, having a Twitter feed embedded on your site is valuable visibility.
But do you know how well your Twitter followers and impressions are growing?
With a powerful Twitter management tool like Sprout Social, you can schedule and publish Tweets, track key performance metrics, monitor Twitter activity, and easily engage with followers.
Learn more about how you can use Twitter effectively to build and grow your brand presence.
