How to Embed Twitter Testimonials on Your Website

By Charlene Kingston
Published July 8, 2011

What matters to most potential customers is not what you say about your business, but what your existing customers have to say.

Here’s a simple strategy to help you convince prospects to become customers. And it’s done by embedding Twitter testimonials on your website.

Why Testimonials Matter

When potential customers check out your business online, they want to see proof that you deliver what you promise. It’s important that you provide evidence that you have happy customers.

Testimonials are powerful because they come straight from your customers in their own words. It’s important you add testimonials to your site. You can easily tap into tweets from people who say great things about your business.

Why Tweets Make Good Testimonials

Tweets make great testimonials for several reasons:

• They’re short, so they get to the point quickly.
• People write them in a moment of enthusiasm, so they’re filled with praise and excitement.
• They’re written for public review, so you don’t need to ask permission to use a tweet as a testimonial.

What kinds of tweets make great customer testimonials? Those whose entire content is about your business, your product or your service.

An example of a customer testimonial written as a tweet.

Use Twitter Favorites to Display Testimonials

Twitter makes it easy for your business to capture and display tweets when you mark them as Favorites. To make this strategy work, you must use Favorites exclusively for testimonials.

To Favorite a tweet, hover your mouse over the tweet. Twitter displays a list of commands that are not visible until you hover on the tweet. Locate the Favorite (star) option and click it. Twitter adds this tweet to your list of Favorite tweets.

An example of a tweet showing the Favorite option while hovering the mouse over it.

Twitter allows you to display your most recent Favorite tweets on your website or blog using a widget. Every time you mark a new Favorite tweet, Twitter adds it to your customer testimonials automatically.

An example of a Twitter widget displaying customer testimonials.

How to Create Your Testimonials Twitter Widget

Before you start creating your Twitter Favorites widget, you need this information:

• The size of the spot for your Twitter widget on your site in pixels (height and width).
• Optional: The hex code (for example: #d34e01) for colors used on your site to customize the widget.

You may also need technical assistance to insert the HTML code into your blog or website.

To create and customize your widget:

#1: The Twitter Widgets page

Choose widgets for your website on the Twitter Widgets page.

Click My Website.

Click "My Website" to display the widgets available for your website.

Click Faves Widget.

The Faves Widget contains a list of tweets you mark as favorites.

Make sure you have Favorited some tweets.

#2: Customize your widget heading

To customize your widget:

• Change the Title to What People Are Saying About (or something similar).
• Change the Caption to your business name (if necessary).

The Customize Your Faves Widget Settings page.

Click Test Settings to see your changes take effect (if necessary). On the right, Twitter displays your widget with your favorites and your settings.

#3: Customize your widget preferences

Click Preferences. Twitter displays the Customize Your Faves Widget Preferences page. This page allows you to customize how your widget works. Choose the options that you want for your widget.

• Poll for New Results keeps checking for new tweets marked as a Favorite.
• Include Scrollbar lets you add more tweets than fit into the widget display area.
• To make your list scroll through your tweets, choose Timed Interval and Loop Results.
• To remove the date, uncheck Show Timestamps. (Leave this checked if you want to display the customer testimonial dates.)

The Customize Your Faves Widget Preferences page showing common preference options.

To see the effect of your options, click Test Settings. Experiment until the widget works the way you want it to work on your site.

#4: Customize your widget to your site and brand colors

Click Appearance. Twitter displays the Customize Your Faves Widget Appearance page.

This page allows you to change the colors used in your widget. Use the hex codes for your site colors to exactly match your Twitter widget to your site.

To change a widget color:

Click the color box next to the color you want to change. Twitter displays a color picker window.

The Customize Your Faves Widget Appearance page showing the five color options you can customize to match your website or blog branding.

Type the hex code for the desired color.

The Customize Your Faves Widget Appearance page showing a color picker window for one color option.

Click Done. Twitter updates the color box and the widget example.

An example of the Customize Your Faves Widget Appearance page showing a color picker after typing the hex code for a new color choice.

Click Test Settings to see your colors (if necessary).

#5: Customize your widget to fit the space on your site

Click Dimensions. Twitter displays the Customize Your Faves Widget Dimensions page.

Type the height and width of your finished widget in pixels.

The Customize Your Faves Widget Dimensions page showing the Widget Dimensions boxes.

#6: Finish your Twitter Faves Widget

When you have finished customizing your Twitter Faves Widget, click Finish & Grab Code.

The Customize Your Faves Widget Dimensions page showing the Finish & Grab Code button.

Twitter displays the code in a text box in the middle of the page. Copy and paste this code into a text file for storage, or directly into your website.

The Customize Your Faves Widget page showing the HTML code box.

Tip: When you leave this page, your customization settings are lost. Save this code permanently by storing it in a text file, Microsoft Word document or other location.

Your website uses this code to display your Twitter widget. You insert the code into your website at the location where you want the Twitter widget to appear. Common places for Twitter widgets include:

• The front page of your website. Put your customer testimonials where new visitors can easily find them.
• In your blog sidebar. If your website gets traffic landing directly on blog posts, consider adding your Twitter widget in the blog sidebar.
• In your website footer. You can adjust the height of the Twitter widget to fit your footer height.

When you install the code, the Twitter widget appears immediately and displays your current favorite tweets. As you mark new tweets as favorites, they appear in the widget, also.

An example Twitter widget using favorites as testimonials.

It’s Your Turn

What do you think? Have you used tweets as testimonials on your site? Have you tried the Twitter Favorites Widget? What testimonial strategy works well for your business? Leave your comments in the box below.

Tags: charlene kingston, faves widget, favorite tweets, testimonial, twestimonials, twitter favorites, twitter testimonials, twitter widget

About the Author, Charlene Kingston

Charlene Kingston teaches small businesses how to build a strong online presence with a thriving community through her blog, free webinars, courses, ebooks and personal consultations at the Social Media DIY Workshop. Other posts by Charlene Kingston »