“Click to Tweet” was a unique addon for websites that I enjoyed. Of course, I saw it on Michael Hyatt’s website. It was one of those innovations that became instantly popular. I’ve seen the pro bloggers all use it. I’m not a pro blogger- I’m an author – but I still thought it was cool and innovative. If you found a self contained tip on writing you thought meant something, you could re-tweet it to your own timeline.
Using Click To Tweet
I installed it, and got it running. It required an entire three minutes of reasoning once I installed it. I looked over my latest blog post, looking for something any reader would want to tweet.
There was nothing in it anyone would want to tweet. It shaped my blogging persona right away. If I had Click to Tweet still installed, right now I’d throw this line in the middle of it.
“If you want to be retweeted, you must first write something worth re-tweeting.”
Nicholas Reicher
I think that was the single biggest shaping moment in my writing overall. Anything I spend time on in writing has an effect overall. Twitter helped condense my thinking, click to tweet taught me to make every thought strong, every sentence notable.
Should I use Click To Tweet?
If you’ve got a writers’ blog, go ahead and get it. Use it for a year. Nobody will retweet you, but hey! That’s not why I’m recommending it.
So why did I ditch it?
- I forgot to use it. Yup. Honest Truth. I spaced it. You know that when you develop a process for writing, you need to be intentional about what you do. I was intentional at first, but entire months would pass before I remembered to use it again. It seemed like it was just a little too much added to my work flow. I really don’t like doing my blog, tweets and LinkedIn all on one day. It’s too many hours all doing one thing, and by the time it’s over, it’s already lunch time on Saturday morning.
- It stopped working. Switching from Click to Tweet to Better Click To Tweet gave me better results, like the name said. After all, I found that one spot in my click to tweet sent you to Coschedule’s website, not to mine. I understand financially why they did that, but I would think just having your name on it alone would send people to your site. But in the last two months, BCCT stopped working. I noticed the icon showed up blank in my Gutenberg interface. I’d click to add the verbiage, the window would pop up, I’d try to enter the text. Nothing showed up. Nothing at all. I tried this for a couple of weeks, and it didn’t work. This means some plug in somewhere was conflicting with BCCT. Okay, that’s a problem.
- Had to reinstall it several times. I’ve already TWICE had to remove plugins from my blog due to conflicts, and the plugins I chose are the ones I feel I need. Beta testing for a plugin should also check to see what plugins conflict. I know you can’t test against EVERY plugin – that would be impossible and unrealistic. But certainly, you know people are going to use Disqus, probably a shopping cart (yes, I have one, but I’ve got nothing to sell – right now). Since it was something I have to force myself to remember to use, easy decision. Uninstall. After spending the better part of two afternoons trying to get it working.
- Nobody ever used it. It may be that when people see Click to tweet, they think, “That’s cheesy.” The plugin’s reputation may have been tarnished by professional bloggers, who routinely use profanity in their blogs. It now suggests, “This guy is blogging for a living – me me me me me.” I don’t blog for a living. This blog costs me money which I haven’t recouped. I really don’t want to be associated with the kind of reputation foul mouthed professional bloggers have. Since nobody – ever – has retweeted something, it kind of puts me in the same position as those store keepers who make fresh popcorn every day, and no customer eats it. After a while, the work that goes into it seems futile, so you stop.
Conclusion
I enjoyed Click to Tweet and Better Click to Tweet, and thought it was a neat innovation at the time. But time demands, lack of use by the reader and the sudden conflict with some installed plugin led me to decide it simply wasn’t worth it to continue using it, let alone try to figure out what the conflict was. So it’s removed.
If you spot any left over Click to Tweet code fragments on my website, or BCCT code fragments, don’t hesitate to email me or leave a comment!!
