Twitter is the social network of conversations: every second worldwide launch 6,000 tweets about different topics. This makes Twitter a rich and viable, but also makes it a challenge. With so many messages at the same time, how to achieve audience that click on yours?
The Twitter Cards are a help for you to make your tweets more attractive and therefore get more clicks. Twitter cards are free, and you just need to make a small change in your website to keep them running.
What are the Twitter Cards?
When we speak of the Twitter cards or cards of Twitter we are referring to a enriched message format that offers more information than a normal tweet. There are several types of cards, and each shows different supplementary information, such as photos or videos.
Since Twitter Cards show more than a simple text with a link, you get a better response from users. The Twitter Cards that exist today are four:
- Summary (summary card): Includes the title, description and a preview of the content being shared.
- Large photo summary (summary card with large image): Card similar to summary, but with a larger size.
- Application (app card): Includes the name, description and icon of a mobile application, plus a link to download it.
- Player (player card): Plays a video or audio file directly on Twitter, without leaving the application.
In the past there were two other cards (photo and gallery), but these disappeared and were integrated into the summary card.
Why use Twitter Cards?
The Twitter Cards have several advantages:
- These are more visual: These stand out more in the timeline of your users and help you convey your brand image.
- These get a better CTR.
- In the case of video, allowing the user to enjoy without leaving Twitter. This makes Twitter is becoming a very interesting network to share short videos.
- Increase traffic to your website.
- These have detailed statistics. Let you know the clicks that has received your website for links that you have shared, and clicks that originate in different Twitter accounts than yours.
How to implement the Twitter Cards
To use the Twitter Cards with the contents of your web you need to add a few lines of code to your site. If you cannot do, it is best that you contact your webmaster or web designer to help you.
However, there are also options to use the Twitter Cards through WordPress plugins:
- Yoast SEO: implements cards and Abstract with big picture.
- Twitter: The official plugin of the social network incorporates Twitter Cards along with other functions.