Last Updated on September 22, 2023 by Christopher G Mendla
The Problem: I needed to post images from two image centered blogger blogs that I have, lbiviews.comand blog.bucksviews.com. This blog , blog.chrismendlatech.com, is not image centered.
Alternatives:
- One alternative I found involved setting up Twitter ads and marketing cards. Apparently you have to enter a payment method but can post clickable images without incurring costs. (since you aren’t really doing ads). The problems I saw in this approach was (1) Entering the payment method and (2) It seems that images need to be a particular size. I could live with the payment method but the image sizing seemed like it could be a pain.
- Another alternative was to migrate everything to WordPress which would be unrealistic at this time. It seems WordPress has plugins available that could solve the problem.
Solution:
The solution that appears to work is Twitshot. You can either use their website at www.twitshot.com and/or add the twitshot chrome extension. You can find a link to add the chrome extension on their home page.
Note that you need to allow some access to your Twitter account to Twitshot before you can proceed. I’m not a fan of allowing third party access but this appeared to be safe and worthwhile.
The process for the website version is basically
- Go to www.twitshot.com
- Type the text you want in your tweet.
- Insert a link to the image from the blog. You can use a right-click, copy image address on your live blog.
- Click the TWEET button or you can click the down arrow and choose tweeting with a buffer. That will require that you authorize the BUFFER app. You can schedule the tweet to go out at a particular time. I noticed that my timezone in the Buffer control was London time. I’ll deal with that later.
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| Twitshot’s simple interface |
One thing that Twitshot does not, and cannot solve, is the fact that the Twitter share button on your blogger blog will not allow users to easily tweet an image. Most users would not be aware of tools such as Twitshot. I assume that eventually Blogger or Twitter will find a solution that will allow average users to Tweet images from your blog. In the meantime, it is a fantastic tool for social media exposure of your blogs.
UPDATE 12/20/17 – I found an issue that seems to be related to uploading images to Blogger directly from Google Photos when linked to your Google Plus account.
UPDATE Dec 2017 – Twitshot has been working perfectly. If you are using the free version of the Buffer app, you can only have 10 items at one time in the buffer. I am on Easter time. I found that if I want tweets to go out around 10 am, I schedule them for around 3pm London time.