You read about the latest, great plugin and rush to add it to your site.
But, did you add the right one?
- Sounds simple, right?
- After all, you have the plugin name
What you find is the name might as well be John Smith (or Cathy Miller) for all the like-named plugins.
There are few platforms that have more plugins associated with it than Twitter. I have gone though more than my share since starting this blog.
Recently, one of my colleagues complained in a forum about the number of bloggers that don’t use url shorteners in their Retweet (RT) buttons.
- Guilty as charged
- But, not for lack of trying
My blog title is rather long – note to self – remember that the next time you are dreaming up names.
- I had visited the settings on the installed RT button – on all the versions I used
- I could not find an option for a url shortener
- It was on my backburner list of things to research
I owned up in the forum that I was one of those ignorant RT button bloggers.
Another colleague (who knew I used bit.ly) said there were plugins that allowed settings for bit.ly and other url shorteners.
The backburner moved to the front of the line.
Looking for the Real Deal
In this quick video, I show you what I found on my search.
The moral of the story?
It pays to find the real deal.
It’s very much like finding the right Cathy Miller.
How about you?
Have you had plugin confusion?
=====================
Helping you Keep it simple, clear & uniquely yours – contact me for help with your business writing needs.
=====================
Just because something is free, does not mean that the author(ess) has no desire for greater publicity. Just like searching for something as trademarked as Xerox copier or HP printer, does not mean that vendors/purveyors have not included those monikers in their keywords. So you end up with 45000 choices of NOT Xerox or NOT HP…
You are so right, Roy. It’s like Kleenex. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve done the same thing. I figured it out when the plug-in didn’t do what it was supposed to do or wasn’t as great as everyone said it was. So long as you learn from a mistake, it’s OK to make one or two. 🙂
I think I exceeded my quota, Lisa. 😀 Thanks for stopping by.
Good going, Cathy. I just upgraded the travel blog I write for to the new Sociable and discovered it has a similar issue. I’ll need to dig around in the code to find out where to put the Twitter ID.
Hi, Sharon-please share how you do that as I have Sociable as well. I took Twitter off as one of the options, but wouldn’t mind having both if I could figure out the url shortener.
Good points Cathy… SOme plugins by almost the same name are utterly different (other times they’re six and half a dozen…)
I thought that Twitter was automatically shortening url’s these days? Or maybe that’s just the Tweet button I’m using.
Anyway it’s a handy tip, and bit.ly links are easy to track as well which can be useful.
Love the simple video – here’s a tip I’ve found for these instances – if someone’s recommending a plugin, get the name of the author as well – that can help to whittle down the numbers a bit so that you can find the right one!
Thanks, Jym. That’s a good tip – one I found out after the trial and error method. 🙂
Appreciate you stopping by, Jym.
right on Cathy, and the wrong plugin can crash the whole blog… I know!
Ouch-haven’t had that one happen, Anne-knock on wood!