This is a guest post by Dino Dogan, Founder of Dogan Dogs and 2WheelTips . Dino posted a guest post on this blog before on How Do I Start Blogging in 10 Steps or Less? In this guest post, Dino is going to teach us how to automate people using Twitterfeed. You can follow Dino on twitter: @dino_dogan
Manually tweeting new posts by my favorite bloggers has seriously started cutting into my “me” time.
For the last few months I’ve been trying to figure out a way to auto-tweet newest blog posts published by my friends and favorite bloggers. As a rule, these are people who constantly and consistently produce good content sans sales pitch.
The problem is that I always had to do it manually. I had to:
- Keep an eye on my favorite blogs
- Keep track of their publishing schedule, and when they have something new I’d have to tweet it manually.
- I felt bad when I missed an opportunity to spread a really cool post around to my followers
Doing this for 3 or 4 blogs is easy. Doing it for 20 or 30 is hard.
It was becoming both time consuming and ineffective because inevitably I would miss some pretty awesome posts. And not only would I miss those posts, but my Twitter followers would miss them as well.
I went through many permutations on how to get around it and I’ve come up with some pretty shitty ideas which I will not share with you because I don’t want to embarrass myself.
Btw…ever wonder where shitty ideas come from? Well, wonder no more.
And then a revelation…
But then, while reading a section about Darren Rowse in Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power (Amazon Affiliate link); Joel mentions a tool that Darren uses to publish his own posts using his own RSS feed via Twitterfeed.
So I thought if Darren can use Twitterfeed to publish his own posts using RSS, why can’t I use Twitterfeed to publish other people’s posts using their RSS feed?
I tried it, and it works.
Immediately I felt stupid for not knowing about Twitterfeed sooner, but based on Twitter’s own numbers, Twitterfeed app doesn’t even register on the list of top 10 tools used to access Twitter.
Source: http://blog.twitter.com/2010/09/evolving-ecosystem.html
I am interpreting this to mean that less than 1% of Twitter users are actually using Twitterfeed. So this made me feel little better for being so unlearned.
More automation means more engagement.
Now, for the Twitter purists who will argue that automating Twitter is bad and automation prevents real engagement let me just say this.
Auto-tweeting a new blog posts written by my friends and favorite bloggers allows me to spend more time making real connections on Twitter and engaging with my tweeps. I think it’s a win-win and Dale Carnegie (Amazon Affiliate link) would be proud.
So how do you automate people using Twitterfeed?
It’s so easy.
1. Go to http://twitterfeed.com
a. Twitterfeed doesn’t support login-in with your Twitter ID but it does allow a sign-in with your Open-ID (assuming you have one). Otherwise, you will have to sign-up for a Twitterfeed account which is a breeze.
2. Click on “sign up” and fill-in your email and desired Twitterfeed password
3. That’s all there is to creating an account. Immediately after you provide email and password you will be prompted to create your first feed (see step 5).
4. Go to your favorite blog and get their RSS feed URL. You usually do this by clicking on the RSS icon which usually looks kinda like this.
Side note: Firefox will often display the RSS icon in the address bar which you can click on to get the feed’s URL. Like so.
5. Now that you have the RSS URL, copy and paste it into the Twitterfeed’s and give a friendly name to your feed in the “Feed Name” area. See below.Also, make sure you test the feed by clicking on “test RSS Feed”. Of many feeds that I’ve set up I’ve found only one that was broken and didn’t work. This enabled me to notify the blogger to fix her feed.
6. Click on “Advanced Setting” to configure the feed properties further. See below for the breakdown of these options.
a. Update frequency allows you to check how often Twitterfeed goes out to your favorite blog to check for new posts. I have mine set to 30 minutes.
b. I don’t want to spam my followers so I publish 1 update at a time. Some bloggers might publish many posts in a 30 minute span (unlikely I know, but this scenario would be more likely if I checked the blog every 12 hrs for example. Which is why I opted for every 30 minutes instead). If they did have several posts since the last check-in this would result in multiple tweets. Which would look like this in the timeline of my followers.
This is definitely something you want to avoid.
c. Post Content: Select if you want your 140 characters to be taken up with a title (of the blog post) or title AND description. I use title only. By the time you fit the blog post title, the link and the suffix (see step “g”) you will run out of characters in a hurry.
d. Choose your shortening service. I use bit.ly just because it’s easy and I think it’s a default.
i. Fun tip. Add “+” to your bit.ly address and it will produce stats for you. Like so http://bit.ly/dmfsho+
This tip came to me via Nathan Hangen via his article on 3 Ways Twitter Analysis Can Enhance Your Marketing
e. Post Sorting. I use “pubDate” which means that Twitterfeed will look for the latest post and publish that one. The second option is to use GUID (Globally Unique ID) which I really haven’t used but might, so I will report back if I do.
f. Post Prefix is whatever you want to put before the Twitterfeed plugs the title+link and tweets it. I don’t use post prefix.
g. Post Suffix is same as prefix except it appears at the end of the tweet. I DO use Post Suffix to identify the tweep behind the link. This will let the tweep know that I RTed his post and it lets my followers know who the author is.
h. Keyword filter allows you to only publish posts that match certain words…I think. It’s not a feature I use so experiment with it if you think it might be useful to you.
i. Click on “Continue to step 2” once Advanced settings have been configured
7. Next you will select the type of service (Twitter, Facebook, etc) you want to use to “feed” using Twitterfeed. We will focus on Twitter in this tutorial. I only feed Twitter but others are set up in a similar fashion. So let’s click on Twitter
8. Click on Twitter (shown above) and then click on the giant blue “Authenticate Twitter” button. I recommend that you log into Twitter before clicking on the big blue button to make things seamless. Otherwise, simply provide your Twitter username/password and click on “Allow” to allow Twitterfeed access to your Twitter stream.
9. I don’t use UTM Tags. I think you can manipulate the source (for example) so that it displays something other than twitterfeed. I reckon Twitter can recognize these tags and it might be useful to some but I’ve had no need to use these at this time.
10. Next two windows will basically tell you that you’re done and will provide summary. Acknowledge them and you will end up in the Dashboard area.
11. Once everything is said and done, your Twitter will receive periodic updates from Twitterfeed that will look little something like this
This is an example of a Twitterfeed auto-tweeting the newest post by one of my favorite bloggers.
And that’s how we win friends and automate people.
Is there a secret-agent type of Social Media tool that you are using?
Do you have Ninja level advice for the rest of us?
Related Links:
Check out Chris Brogan’s 12:1 rule (see middle of “What I Do With Twitter” section) which I think we can easily achieve with Twitterfeed.
There is a fine line between Automation and being a douchebag.
What Would Bernays Do? Social Media Lessons From Edward Bernays
Totally Unrelated Links:
Sign a Petition for Canine Circumcision
Humans Are Not Penguins and Other Relationship Facts You Might Not Know
Why Girls Who Own Dogs Make Better Wives
Bio: Dino is a blogger, writer, motorcyclist, dog trainer, singer/songwriter, Martial Artist. He is currently working on Human-Dog Problem Tree; a thesis in human-dog relationship. Dino is also a regular contributor to Social Media Examiner. You can tweet him up at http://twitter.com/dino_dogan
Dino,
I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for taking the time and patients to guide everyone in setting up this. I know its not easy taking screen shots and writing them as you need to make sure its correct.
So thank you so much for this great blog post. I am truly honor to have you and I appreciate it a lot.
As for the blog post this is a superb blog post, its detailed and people should consider this and not overdoing it.
Aaron
I love being here Aaron…thnx so much for having me, I hope people find it useful.
Hey Dino, that's a great tip I wasn't aware of. I currently use Twitterfeed for my own rss feed but it never crossed my mind to add other people's feed. Good job brotha..
thnx man…it was an epiphany for me too 🙂
I was wondering how you did it 🙂 I just noticed that in small letters you can see “via twitterfeed”…didnt think to actually check out the app…who knew….
Great stuff, love your “Totally Unrelated Links” …I've already read all of them but I love the idea…it encourages exploration and discovery…totally awesome post yet again. Thanks Dino
Thnx Chris. Im glad you like the “Totally Unrelated Links” part. I hope it catches on…maybe I dont care to read yet another post about a topic I just read about, maybe I would like something else thats unrelated but awesome…would be cool if it catches on 🙂
Thnx Chris. Im glad you like the “Totally Unrelated Links” part. I hope it catches on…maybe I dont care to read yet another post about a topic I just read about, maybe I would like something else thats unrelated but awesome…would be cool if it catches on 🙂
I have been using this for over a year to do the same thing. I only tweet about Lansing events and happenings as well as Lansing jobs. I subscribe to different rss feeds that discuss these topics and then post them to my Facebook and twitter pages.
Thnx for leaving a comment Lanse (may I call you Lanse? 🙂
Have you thought about using twitterfeed to tweet other people's blog posts? Of course, Im only talking about content producers that would be interesting to your twitter followers.
Perhaps there is a theater in Lansing and they have a twitter account and they tweet upcoming plays. Something like that would be of great interest to your followers. You could then set up that theater's RSS in your twitterfeed and auto-tweet it to your followers.
I think its a tremendous win-win for you, the content producer as well as your followers. Just a thought 🙂
Dino, thanks for the tip. I've implemented the Twitterfeed connection with a couple of my favorite content providers.
Last year I created custom software that I call “TweetieBot” that automatically updates my Twitter account “twittifamily” every five minutes from a database of links about family, parenting, social media, etc. that I get from Google Alerts. Great for me, but not a tip that can be duplicated for other folks. After reading your article, it occurred to me: Google categorizes its news by topic and publishes via RSS. What if I syndicated a stream from Google to Twitter? I've configured a test feed about “parenting” and will probably blog about the results at http://thedigitalstylus.blogspot.com.
Sorry, I meant Aaron!
Well, so far all I've gotten is a 503 error; http://getsatisfaction.com/twitterfeed/topics/_feed_status_unknown_error_recieved_from_feed_503_27_mar_08_17 says that Google is blocking twitterfeed from accessing the RSS feeds.
Arrghh. So until Google sees fit to give twitterfeed access, this is not an option for other tweeps. Disappointment!
Have you tried yahoo pipes? YP might accomplish what you're trying to do. Keep us posted.
I created a Yahoo Pipe for “parenting tips”, saved out to RSS and config'd a twitterfeed to update twittifamily 5 posts at a time every half hour. And it's working! Since Google won't cooperate with twitterfeed, the combo of Yahoo Pipes and twitterfeed seems like a more than viable alternative. Thanks for the great tip!
Thats awesome…glad that worked 🙂 Make sure you write a blog post outlining exactly how you did it…I'd check that out 🙂
Will do, thanks again! I'll tweet the post to you.
Definitely try looking into Yahoo Pipes. It's a great tool for mashing up RSS feeds, especially Twitter, and you can also filter results from a feed based on keywords you specify. Could save you a lot of time having to manually sift through blog posts yourself. 🙂
Here's the blog detailing setting up a simple search in Yahoo Pipes: http://bit.ly/a6uxsl
Saw it, loved it, tweeted it 🙂
Thanks for sharing. I will definitely use this 😉
Hi Dino, thanks for the great tip. I already use twitterfeed for my own blog and it hadn't occured to me that I could use it to help promote friends or other blogs that my twitter readers might be interested in. I have set up two more twitterfeeds for two friends, hopefully it will increase their readership too.
Thanks for sharing the great tip! It was the first time that I had read the twitterfeed blog and found the link to your post there 🙂
you are welcome Ving, Im glad you found it useful 🙂
Im stoked that twitterfeed blog has included this post in their blog…I must go and thank them 🙂
When the idea came to me I felt like Gutenberg when he invented his press by combining wine-press with a printing plate… lol So too we can combine twitterfeed with other people's RSS…eureka!!! lol
Nice and helpfull post Dino! I see my name all over this post hehe, thanks again for choosing me. Look forward to reading more of your work.
Hey ya dude…great to see ya…the other article that you’re all over is currently in editing and will be published on social media examiner ….I appreciate your help with it 🙂
Thank you- I didn’t know about Twitterfeed either. Very helpful!
Hi Shauna, great to see you here 🙂
It was a “smack my forehead”, “why didnt I think of this sooner” type of moment for me too 🙂 Now I have like 20+ RSSs in my feed and of course, yours is one of them.
One great side effect of it is that it helps me keep an eye on who posted what since I check my published tweets often.
We have to talk soon, I have some bog plans in store for us 🙂
it is supper useful when you have more than one twitter account to update just set it and forget i love it
I wish to
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
Thanks for this detailed description. I always get very annoyed with these twitterfeed spams, when I get 10 tweets at once from one person. Doing it every 30 min seems to make a lot more sense. Best line for me: “More automation means more engagement.” Although I would say that “More consistency means more engagement.” is even better because there are ways to do this personally. Otherwise the bot nature is still in there somehow. 🙂
Glad you liked it William…
Im glad you took time to look at the less pure side of twitter 🙂 I admire your protocol.