Seeing that WordPress.com has added a much welcome Twitter feature for WP-hosted blogs, I thought putting the plugin to a test for our friends would be great if titled “How to tweet with your WP blog.”

Why the title has changed to this very long title, “If you want to customize your tweets from your WP posts, do not ignore the developer’s Support page“, is what this post is about. I hope that our friends will avoid the same oversight as I have in activating the plugin.

Starting with information from WP post, Publicize: Twitter, our test, meant to be a quick and easy one, took us more time than expected. And all because I did not give particular attention to one important information, the Support page.

Here is a blow-by-blow account:

1. Enabled Twitter by click selecting Twitter in Dashboard -> My Blogs admin page

2. Once enabled, an “Authorize Twitter” message appeared.

3.Clicked on the authorization link to open a Twitter authorization window where I entered one of my company’s Twitter username (or email address) and password.

4. Once validated, the window jumped back to my WP Dashboard.

Okay, that was expected.

5. Wrote a test post titled Installing WP for Blackberry, a re-post of an earlier entry with similar title. Clicked “Publish.”

6. Opened a new window with my WP-associated Twitter account. Below is what was displayed.

Did I miss a step?

I wanted to customize my Twitter update, but Twitter immediately grabbed and displayed it. I wanted to add a teaser to the post title. With other WP Twitter-related plugins, I would do that right inside Twitter.

Hmm, how do I customize my tweet?, I asked. Haven’t I read in the WP post “You can stick with the default, automatically generated tweet, or customize it to your heart’s content”?

Because I have not done any customization, obviously what I am seeing is the default.

7. Went back to the Add New / Edit Posts window, and going over the items on the right panel, it’s then I realized that a small “Publicize” text link has been added.

8. Here is a screenshot of the “Publicize” option on the right panel, so inconspicuous that I failed to notice it the first time.

9. And here is a screenshot of the “Publicize” mini-window when clicked:

So, this is where customization takes place. Interesting!

Has this been mentioned in the WP Publicize: Twitter post? No, not in this post. Heading over to the linked WP support page, similar screenshots are clearly displayed.

How did I miss that? I did not bother to check the Support page linked on the announcement post.

Oh well, next time I’ll remember to check support pages too.

Note:

If you have reached this point reading this post, I don’t think you need to go to the support page any longer.

My experience (a bit embarassing, I know) is now shared.