How to add Twitter to your WordPress blog

If you run a local blog there’s a good chance you might be on Twitter, as my some of your neighbours. This creates a ‘back-channel’ that can often go unseen. So in the interests of enhancing local blogs with this back-channel, below is a video which shows you how to add both your own tweets and the results of a Twitter search to your WordPress blog.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please leave them in the comments section below.

Instructions – adding someone’s tweets

1. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets
2. Drag the Twitter widget onto the sidebar
3. Add the twitter account name you want to show
4. Configure the remaining options to change the display
5. Click Save
6. Refresh your blog and you should see the new widget on your sidebar

Instructions – adding a Twitter search

1. Go to search.twitter.com and perform a search.
2. On the right hand side, right click on the link that reads “Feed for this query” and select Copy link location
3. Go to your WordPress dashboard
4. Go to Appearance > Widgets
5. Drag the RSS widget to your sidebar
6. In the first box, paste the link you just copied from Twitter
7. Configure the other options according to your preferences
8. Click Save
9. Refresh your blog and you should see the new widget on your sidebar