Warning, Warning! Fix the Settings on Tweet Old Post Plugin!
Bloggers, if you use the WordPress plugin called Tweet Old Post you must update your settings after the recent update!
Most of you guys know that I'm a Twitter-holic and last week I noticed a few tweets going out from my friends that were very strange. The tweets included nothing more than a link – without a description or any additional text to indicate where the link was going. Typically when I see a link like this on Twitter it looks very spammy and I would block anyone doing this. Imagine how I felt when I saw this type of link going out from my very own Twitter account!! Initially, I thought my account was hacked 🙁 but I was quickly able to determine that was not the case and figure out that the real culprit was the Tweet Old Post Plugin for WordPress.
HootSuite indicated the source as Tweet Old Post
If you use HootSuite to monitor your Twitter streams, you'll notice that HootSuite displays the source of the Tweet right next to the time stamp. In this case, HootSuite gave me a clear indication that the tweet was generated by Tweet Old Post. I got additional clues on Twitter since I can preview any URL with the Parrot Fish Chrome extension from Embedly.
Here's a video tutorial to walk you through the Tweet Old Post Plugin settings panel along with my recommended configurations.
I received a question on YouTube from my friend Evelyn Parham about creating a Su.pr link. This plugin will generate the Su.pr link for you “automagically” when you have the option checked off. See the screenshot below.
After I recorded this screencast I realized you need select YES to the question: Include link. You'll see these options for URL shorteners
- is.gd
- su.pr
- bit.ly
- tr.im
- 3.ly
- u.nu
- 1click.art
- tinyurl
Su.pr is my first choice and bit.ly is my second. I've never tried the others (and some of them I never even heard of).
Update Tweet Old Post Now
I made quite a few recommendations in the video, and some of them you agree with and some of them you might not. Please let me know what settings you're using and why you think they are more effective. But most importantly my friends: Update your Tweet Old Post settings right now!