The variety of Twitter Card types available for your website or blog can be a little intimidating, and choosing the right kind of Twitter Card for each type of content on your website isn’t exactly intuitive.
For a quick reminder, here are all the different Twitter Card types:
- Summary Card (this now includes what were previously photo, gallery, and product cards)
- App Card
Twitter has a guide of sorts (you can check it out here), but it’s not exactly easy for the average business owner to figure out.
Unless you have a background in website design or development, sorting through all the Twitter Card types and setting up the right ones might be more of a hassle than it’s worth.
Instead, we wanted to find out what actual users were doing—you know, people who use Twitter Cards on a daily basis for business.
So that’s what we did—we went straight to the users to find out what really works best. We asked them, “What Twitter Card types work best for blog posts?”
Both of our users focused on Summary Cards with Large Image, so that’s what we’ll be discussing today.
And who are our users, you might ask? Well, they’re definitely power users: Carol Stephen of Your Social Media Works and Bridget Willard of You Too Can Be A Guru.
They each run multiple social media accounts for a variety of different businesses, and they were gracious enough to share their expertise with us.
Here’s what we talked about!
How Do Images Play Into Your Strategy?
Carol Stephen
Most people are visual, so I include images regularly. Here are some stats:
Tweets with images get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets.
And this isn’t just on Twitter—any post on any social media platform that can have an image will drive more traffic.
Why Would Twitter Implement These Different Twitter Card Types?
Heather Steele
People expect visual content—you get higher engagement. Facebook images have gotten larger and higher quality over time.
What’s The Difference Between Setting Up Different Twitter Card Types And Just Using An Image?
Bridget Willard
An image is still good, but Twitter Cards are clickable. They bring you back to the blog and drive traffic.
And adding an image takes up 20 characters, whereas Twitter Cards don’t take up any of your precious characters.
What’s The Best Way to Choose An Image For The Different Twitter Card Types?
Bridget Willard
I have it set up to grab my featured image. You want it to be wide, which is better for a blog anyway. When I use Canva, I pick their blog post title size—it seems to be working…
How Do You Add The Different Twitter Card Types To Your WordPress Website?
Bridget Willard
This is what makes WordPress awesome—the automatic-al-ness of it! Nobody wants to do extra work.
I’m using JM Twitter Cards—specifically, of all the Twitter Card types, I’m using Summary Cards with Large Image. It takes the featured image and grabs the text from the excerpt, so you know exactly what it will look like. This is the most common of all Twitter Card types.
When you look at my live tweet here of a blog post (FIX THOSE CRACKS!), you can see what it looks like.
Carol Stephen
You’ll notice she’s putting returns in her tweet to make them bigger still. Those returns do count towards your character count, but only 1 character each.
Bridget Willard
But remember, people don’t read—they scan. And look how large the image is compared to other images in the feed.
When you click “view summary,” it becomes very large in comparison. Of all the Twitter Card types, this is why I love the Summary with Large Image type.
And let me show you what it looks like on a mobile device—still pretty big. Most people are on their phones. All they see is your little logo. You’re competing for that space. Using different Twitter Card types takes up a huge amount of space, and the picture is going to grab you more.
Carol Stephen
Another thing you can do is pin the image to your feed. Pin it to the top, people will see the image, and you’re more likely to get clicks—it’s a twofer!
How Often Do YOU Actually Click The View Summary Button—I Mean, Of All The Twitter Card Types, Do These Actually Work Best?
Carol Stephen
If I see a really compelling headline, I’ll click “view summary” to see what it’s all about.
Bridget Willard
Plus, it gives you an opportunity to get another headline. Not only do you get an image without losing characters, but you also get the summary. Not all Twitter Card types are the same, so I think these are best. I mostly live on my lists, so I click their content because I know I want it.
Carol Stephen
I look through search too, and that extra space lets you put in an extra hashtag—some people can find you that way.
Are Different Twitter Card Types Better Or Worse Than Just Including An Image Or Video?
Bridget Willard
Just super quickly, once you set up the plugin, that’s it—you don’t do it anymore. You set it to default to the summary—just pick summary out of the different Twitter Card types. If you write a blog post with an excerpt and a featured image, it’s already done. An image could have a different purpose—it doesn’t have to be a link to a blog post.
Carol Stephen
We’re all super busy, so it saves time. Another benefit is that it’s free. If it gets you more clicks, that could give you more business.
Heather Steele
And you’re not just blogging because it’s a good practice—you want people to share that content. You’re looking for shares—different Twitter Card types give you control over how that content looks on other sites. You get that in addition to the tweet itself.
Have Either Of You Taken A Deep Look At Your Analytics After Trying These Different Twitter Card Types?
Bridget Willard
There’s actually a whole section of analytics devoted to this.
Also, don’t forget, Google is indexing tweets—if it’s shareable, it’s good for you.
Here you can see when I installed Twitter Cards (analytics.twitter.com) that there was a steep uptick in impressions—280%.
If you look at your analytics, you can see your top tweets, top followers, etc. All that information wasn’t available to me before—these different Twitter Card types give me access to better data.
Carol Stephen
I can’t see any downside to using different Twitter Card types, but, there should still be emphasis on creating compelling headlines. Those first few words are going to be incredibly important.
Bridget Willard
And this is all using JM Twitter Cards, which are highly rated in the WordPress repository. It’s a great way to implement the different Twitter Card types.
If you’re new to WordPress, don’t just try the stuff that’s there. A lot of us are DIY-ing our websites—have a tiny bit of fear when choosing plugins.
Carol Stephen
There are also videos on how to install this particular plugin that you can easily search for. I use the same plugin.
Heather Steele
We are using Yoast for our website, and it has the same capabilities built in (here’s a guide on how to set it up in yoast). You can switch to the Twitter tab and find the same functionality. And if you still have an HTML site, you can find the code to drop in directly on Twitter.
Any Parting Thoughts On How People Should Be Using These Different Twitter Card Types?
Carol Stephen
Anything that can make it simpler for your followers is great—targeted content is better.
Bridget Willard
If it’s too hard, people won’t do it. Most people don’t know what they’re doing, so you have to make it easy. Using different Twitter Card types might also be a good way to test your headlines.
Thanks For Everything You Two! How Can People Find And Follow You?
Carol Stephen
Website: YourSocialMediaWorks.com
Twitter: @Carol_Stephen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoursocialmediaworks
Bridget Willard
Website: BridgetWillard.com
Twitter: @youtoocanbeguru
Heather Steele
Website: BlueSteeleSolutions.com
Twitter: @heathersteele03
