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Integrating Twitter Social Login

Implementing login using Twitter directly through their provided API endpoints can be tedious and require knowledge of external systems like the OAuth protocol…

Implementing login using Twitter directly through their provided API endpoints can be tedious and require knowledge of external systems like the OAuth protocol. Some useful libraries can help you quickly and easily implement a "Login using Twitter" button and get your users tweeting through your site. Before going through the steps to set up a PHP library used to handle Twitter social login authentication and functionality, Twitter has information on many standard technologies libraries here.

  • Begin by downloading the TwitterOAuth package, which we will be using to setup the login using Twitter button. You can use the following composer package to get this:
json=5.4.0",
 "abraham/twitteroauth": "0.3.0-beta"
 }
}-->
  • Import the TwitterOAuth class onto your page and initialize the connection:
<!--require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use Abraham\TwitterOAuth\TwitterOAuth;
define('CONSUMER_KEY', );
define('CONSUMER_SECRET', );
define('OAUTH_CALLBACK', );
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET);-->

Create a Twitter App on the Twitter dev site that will service the requests for Twitter social login for your site.

Replace the above definitions with the following details from your App:

  • The Consumer Key found in the created app is found under Keys and Access Tokens.
  • The Consumer Secret found in the created app is found under Keys and Access Tokens.
  • The URL that you would like a user to return to after successfully authenticating.

Next, generate a Request token that will be used to generate a URL, which will trigger the Twitter Authentication popup.

From the response object, capture the "oauth_token" and "oauth_token_secret" for further use.

Generate the URL to be used to display the Twitter social login Authentication interface.

Setup a button or trigger it to cause users to navigate to this URL, which will display the Twitter social login interface.

  1. Once a user has successfully authenticated, they will be redirect to the location that you specified in the request_token OAUTH_CALLBACK URL.
  2. On your Callback page, import the TwitterOAuth class again:
<!--require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use Abraham\TwitterOAuth\TwitterOAuth;
define('CONSUMER_KEY', );
define('CONSUMER_SECRET', );
define('OAUTH_CALLBACK', );-->

Define the definitions as you did in step 2.

  • Initialize the connection using the stored "oauth_token" and "oauth_token_secret".
  • Finally, request an access_token to be used to access user data and actions.

At this point, your user gets logged in, and you can make calls to Twitter social login APIs. That's how you have successfully set login using Twitter on your page.

Want to extend your social systems with additional provider functionality? Check out this post on LinkedIn social login.

Karl Wittig

Written by Karl Wittig

Karl is the AVP of Customer Success at LoginRadius, the industry leading Consumer IAM provider. He thrives in fast paced high tech environments working closely with Customers to overcome complex Identity related challenges as part of their digital transformations. Outside of work, he spends his time with his family in and around Vancouver hiking, snowboarding and exploring.

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