Custom Twitter Feeds – A Tweets Widget or X Feed Widget

You can embed your Twitter feed directly into a template file by using the WordPress do_shortcode function: <?php echo do_shortcode('[custom-twitter-feeds]'); ?>.

Unlike other Twitter plugins which use iFrames to embed your Twitter feed into your page in a widget, the Custom Twitter Feeds plugin uses server-side code to embed your Twitter feed widget content directly into your page. This adds dynamic, search engine crawlable content to your site.

The Custom Twitter Feeds plugin should work in compatibility with most, if not all, caching plugins, but you may need to tweak the settings in order to allow the Twitter feed to update successfully and display your latest Twitter posts. If you are experiencing problems with your Twitter feed widget not updating then try disabling either ‘Page Caching’ or ‘Object Caching’ in W3 Total Cache (or any other similar caching plugin) to see whether that fixes the problem and the Twitter feed displays and updates successfully.

By default, your Twitter feed should automatically inherit the font from your website. If this isn’t the case, then it’s possible that something in the theme is preventing this from happening. An issue that we’ve run into before is that <code> tags are added into the Twitter feed widget HTML by either the theme, another plugin, or perhaps even the custom-twitter-feeds shortcode being wrapped in code tags in your page editor.

To fix this:

1) First – go to your page editor, click on the ‘Text’ tab in the top right of the editor box, and check whether the [custom-twitter-feeds] shortcode is being wrapped in <code> tags, like so: <code>[custom-twitter-feeds]</code>. If it is, then remove them.

2) If this doesn’t solve the problem then try adding the following to the plugin’s “Custom CSS” section (Twitter Feeds > Customize > Custom CSS):

#ctf code { font-family: sans-serif; } 

You can replace the font-family with whatever font your theme is using.

Twitter recently announced a Twitter API that offers a limited number of API requests for a $100 monthly fee. Right now, we’re working on integrating our plugin with this new API which would allow for more features.

If you’d like to display tweets from only one source, we’ve got your back. As a free user of Custom Twitter Feeds, you can showcase your tweets from 1 user timeline feed at NO cost to you.

Want to embed multiple Twitter feeds from different user timelines? This is a feature of the Pro version of the plugin, which allows you to show tweets from multiple user timelines, moderate and filter your feeds, and more!

The main differences between the free version and Pro version of the Custom Twitter Feeds plugin are listed below. The extra features available in the Pro version are as follows:

• Display photos, videos, and gifs in your Tweets, with support for 3rd party services such as YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, and SoundCloud
• Show tweets from multiple users in the same Twitter feed
• View Twitter media in a pop-up lightbox directly on your site
• Display Tweets in a multi-column Masonry layout
• Display your Twitter feed in rotating Carousels / Slideshows
• Ready-made Twitter feed templates so you don’t have to build your feeds from scratch
• Twitter Cards (rich, standout links) are displayed in Tweets for links that support them
• Combine Twitter feeds of multiple user timelines
• Update Twitter feeds and sources up to 12x per day
• Filter feeds by keywords, or add/remove specific tweets manually
• Tweet-specific moderation system
• Autoload more tweets when scrolling to the bottom of the Twitter feed
• Include Tweet replies (“in reply to”)
  Try the Pro version demo here

If you receive an error message when trying to display your Twitter Feed widget then you can use the error reference below to diagnose the issue and find the relevant solution.

Twitter Error:
Unauthorized

Causes:
– You may not have connected your site to Smash Balloon or the connection is not valid – See #1 below

Twitter Error:
Unable to load tweets (with no other explanation)

Causes:
– You may need to raise the number of tweets to retrieve and display in your Twitter feed widget – See #3 below

Twitter Error:
Sorry, that Twitter page does not exist

Causes:
– There may be a typo in the Twitter screen name you are attempting to use

Twitter Error:
Over capacity

Causes:
– Twitter’s servers are over capacity so the API is unusable. This will correct itself after some time.

Twitter Error:
Connection timed out after 10000 milliseconds

Causes:
– Most likely this is due to your server blocking access to the Twitter API – See #4 below

Solutions

#1 – Your Smash Balloon connection might not be valid

You can reset or recollect your site access token by going to the Settings page for the Custom Twitter Feeds plugin and clicking the “Refresh” button to start the process of retrieving a new site key.

#2 – You have checked the box to use your own Twitter app information but one or more of the fields are incorrect

Note: Connecting you own Twitter App is not yet available but will be soon. All four fields, Twitter consumer token, Twitter consumer secret, Twitter access token, and Twitter access token secret, need to come from the Twitter app that you set up on Twitter.com. Try returning to your personal Twitter app management page https://apps.twitter.com/ and confirming that all four fields, Twitter consumer token, Twitter consumer secret, Twitter access token, and Twitter access token secret are entered correctly in the corresponding fields on the Custom Twitter Feeds plugin’s “Configure” tab.

#3 – You may need to raise the number of tweets to retrieve

Navigate to the type of Twitter feed you are trying to display on twitter.com. For example, if you are displaying a Twitter feed from the screenname “smashballoon”, go to https://twitter.com/smashballoon. Make sure there are tweets visible. Then click on the link “Tweets & replies”. If there are a more recent replies than original tweets, there may be too many tweets being filtered out to display any. Twitter replies are removed by default. You can raise the number of tweets to retrieve initially by going to the Custom Twitter Feed Settings page, “Customize” tab, and navigating to the “Advanced” area. Then raise the “Tweet Multiplier” and test to see if your Twitter feed now displays tweets.

If you’re still having trouble displaying your Tweets after trying the common issues above, then please contact support for assistance.