BackType is a very useful WordPress plug in designed to help multiply the number of comments you get on your blog. Read more to find out about this plug in and how it can help your blog.
What is BackType?
BackType is a WordPress plug in that works to find conversations related to your content. BackType works with several different websites such as Twitter, Friend Feed, Digg, and Reddit to find links and comments about your blog posts and then gives you the option to display those comments with the ones already displaying on your blog.
BackType works with WordPress version 2.7 and is compatibale up to version 2.7.1. If you have any other comment replacement plug ins on your blog, you will need to deactivate these before you can use BackType.
How Does BackType Work?
BackType scours the web for:
- tweets that link your posts
- FriendFeed entries that mention your posts
- Submissions of your posts through Digg, Reddit, and Hacker News
- Trackbacks, pings, and links to your posts from other blogs.
Once it finds something that mentions your posts, it will give you the option to display it on the blog, either at the end of the post or along with the comments from other bloggers. You have the option to moderate the comments.
BackType will work with many other plug ins as long as they are not replacement comment systems such as IntenseDebate. It will help you see who's generating buzz on the web about your blog and find out more about your readers and how well your marketing campaigns are working. Though it may take some time for the BackType comments to display depending on a variety of factors such as the age of your post, it is definitely worth having because it serves as an extra set of eyes and ears watching out for conversation about your blog.
Using BackType
To get BackType, all you need to do is download the files to your computer. Then, you can install it on your blog with these instructions.
BackType is a very highly customizable plug in because you can choose the specific sources you want the comments to come from, place a summary at the top of your comments section to detail how many comments are coming from each source, and you can choose whether you want BackType's comments to be shown below your blog comments or mixed in with them.
BackType offers support and even has a Twitter account of their own for Twitter users to follow.