How To Retweet Old Post Automatically

Not so long ago, I have shared on my home based business website, 11 must have WordPress plugins for your home based business. One of my friends, Ileane of BasicBlogTips, has left the following comment.

To be honest with you, I’m not a fan of Tweet Old Post – not so much from a blog owner’s point of view, but from an avid Twitterer’s point of view. I’m not sure what kind of control it gives you but I see so many of my fellow bloggers using it and the old posts that are tweeting are really stale and some of the information is defunct! For example, you did a lovely holiday greeting post on Christmas, just imagine if Tweet old post gets hold of that one in July of 2011.

I can see her point and obviously I responded immediately to her observation. This has also prompted me to write something about the WordPress plugin, Twee Old Post.

What does Tweet Old Post Do?

Very simple answer and that is to retweet your old articles (or post) based on a specified criteria. If you noticed Ileane’s concern, you will agree that Tweeting old post that are no longer relevant, will just backfire on you and make you look silly. Imagine if my post about Merry xMas is indeed retweeted on July 2011? That would be odd

Why should you use Tweet Old Post?

One of the advantages I found using this plugin is that it keeps my website alive and it pretty much covers a 24 hour stream. This is particularly interesting when your posting frequency is not so regular and/or if you will be absent for a certain period of time. However, as Ileane mentioned, you should be careful on what you will be retweeting as you do not want among other things bombard your followers with old news or crappy material. Pillar articles or those that you believe are articles that despite old are still relevant are good examples of post that I recommend retweeting. It is also good for promoting contest or polls, while they are still active.

How do you control your tweets?

Well here is what maybe a lot of people do not know, but Tweet Old Post gives you full control over what should be Retweeted, when, and you know the drill. Here is a recommended step by step instruction on how to setup your Tweet Old Post settings.

• Account Login: After installing and activating the plugin, you should sign-in with your Twitter account via the OAUT process.
• Tweet Prefix: You can type in anything you want to appear before your tweets. this can be RT, or Repost, or just be creative if you want. I leave it blank.
• Add Post Data and Fetch URL: I use the default settings. Post data will fill your tweet up to the maximum allowed. Also you leave no space for anyone to RT
• URL Shortener: Check the box and select your favorite service.
• #Hashtag: You all know what a hashtag is, right. Here you can set one by default. I leave it blank.

Now here comes the most important part of your settings:

Minimum interval between tweets: This is the interval between tweets that Tweet Old Post will send. This means that it will only send Tweets every XX hours. This depends entirely on you but caution should be taken.

Random Interval: Same as above but in addition will also send Tweets in between the minimum intervals.

Minimum Age of post: This is where you should really think cautiously. A “fresh” post should really not be included in your automatic retweets. This depends a lot of the posting frequency and how you want the plugin to perform. Use this wisely. In my case, I set it up for 15 days. This means that no Tweets will be sent for any post that are not over 15 days old.

Maximum age: This is one filter. You can set it up for XX days but it may contradict what you are looking for. For example I set it up for 45 days. This means that it will not send any Tweet for any post that is older than 45 days. Now say I have a pillar article that has been written 180 days ago and that is still valid today? In this case, you should set the maximum to either zero or 180 days. However, there are still some articles that fall within this parameter and you do not want them to be included. How do you that? Read on.

• First Option: Exclude categories. Here you can exclude right out a category. When you choose to exclude a category, not one article within that category will ever be Retweeted. If there are articles that you want included from an excluded category, you should not choose this option but rather, option two.
• Second Option: Exclude Posts. Here you can exclude any post that you do not want to be Retweeted individually. This can be a daunting task if you have many posts, but if you combine the filtering capability of Tweet Old Post, then this should not be a problem.

There you go. Now that you are enlightened about Tweet Old Post, what do you think? Is this something that you think can be of use to you? Let us know.