The ‘X [formally known as] Twitter’ option under Connections in the user’s menu.
The Embed Twitter content option within the BLOX CMS article editing panel.
How do I add Tweets to my articles?
Overview
Every day X posts (formerly tweets) are making the news. From the Pope to the President, opinions, policies, and important statements are posted to the micro-messaging service. Much like short press releases or press statements, these X posts are often the basis of an entire news story covered by both national and local press.
And X posts are often a great way for the public to express reactions to specific news stories. Complaints, emotions, and jokes are often shared to in response.
Due to this impact on the news industry, and to help make integration work more smoothly for newsrooms, BLOX Digital has launched a new feature that allows newsrooms to quickly search from within the BLOX CMS editing interface. This saves time and promotes a consistent implementation that works across multiple platforms, including Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
Connect your account
To begin using the Integration feature, first connect a user to the Search Application Programming Interface (API). This process will be launched the first time you use the integration panel, or you can click on your user account, select ‘Connections’, and then click ‘X Twitter’ to begin the process.
The ‘X [formally known as] Twitter’ option under Connections in the user’s menu.
Each individual user must authorize an account to use the Search API. This account is not referenced anywhere within the embedded X posts. Each user can connect with a personal account, or an account created specifically for this purpose.
Tip: At any time, users can go into user preferences and disconnect from their account or connect to a new one.
Use the X button
The Embed Twitter content option within the BLOX CMS article editing panel.
In the BLOX CMS article editing panel, there is now an icon available on the text editor toolbar. This button launches a search in a new window.
Use the Search panel
After the new window is launched, users will now see a panel for searching . At the top of the panel is a search query box where you can type keywords, hashtags or @usernames. There are also options to include reposts and replies, or to include @mentions.
By default, searching for an @username will find all the X posts from that user account. (Note: The search functionality finds tweets that are less than 10 days old.)
Insert X posts into a story
Once you find the most interesting X post(s) (holding shift will select multiples at once), click on the ‘insert’ button and it will add the X post inline where your cursor was in the story.
Tip: To better control where the tweet goes, make sure your cursor is where you want it to be before you click ‘insert’.
Once the X post is inline, drag and drop the blue box (which represents the tweet) anywhere within the story. On the front end, this will be replaced with the correct embed code to generate the appropriate card. This great for tweets with associated videos and photos!
Include X posts in AMP pages
The open-source AMP project, a way to speed-up mobile pages, does not support standard embed codes. Normally, articles with embedded X posts are either not eligible for AMP mode, or the X post is deleted when the article is displayed on an AMP page.
By using the new Search feature in BLOX CMS, the standard embed code is replaced with an AMP-friendly embed code. Embedded X posts are now automatically available within AMP pages.
At BLOX Digital we’re always looking for ways to improve our products and services. Are you using this feature or do you have ideas on how we can make it more useful? Share your thoughts and feedback on the BLOX Digital Community page today!
