Sunday, April 01, 2012

Using Share Code for Twitter

Work's been keeping me busy and I've been writing a lot of social-related stuff over on the JustSearch blog, so here's a super simple (and underused) Twitter thing to keep stuff ticking over.

This is the code needed to make a share button. Really, rocket science this ain't:

https://twitter.com/?status=Whatever You Want Folks to Tweet

Click Here to see what it does, and to give this post some props.

Oh, and be warned hastags (#) are best avoided in your status as they can mess things up and truncate the message. NB: see a solution for this in comments below, if needed.

Now this may not be Wernher von Braun territory, but this has more cool uses than you'd think. It's not the code, it's what you do with it that counts:
  • Say, for example, you just gave your visitors a freebie pdf report on something of value to them, this is a perfect spontaneous way to look like thought leaders and to encourage them to say thanks and spread the word.
  • Say, for example, you have a campaign and are trying to get signatures on a petition on another channel, you could even use this to encourage people to send a specific message to a policy maker if you put the MP's Twitter handle at the beginning of the message.
  • Say, for example, you want to give your business, cause, or individual Klout score a nudge. Try testing the long-tail in include your firms twitter handle in the code and give people some content worth sharing.
  • Say, for example, you are trying to raise awareness of a specific cause or issue from your website. With the right messaging this is a quick win for people to show their support and to get a specific message out.
The limitation is in how creative your prepared to get, not the code. Sure, it's simple, but sometimes simple things can work best if you have the right (and creative) strategic fit for them.

Let me know if you find a cool use for it, and have a great weekend.