.png)
In my last post, I talked about ways to use twitter productively. One of the methods I mentioned was twitterfeed. Well, unless you’re a geek like me, settting up twitterfeed may not be the most intuitive task ever. In fact, you may find yourself wondering what in the world you’re supposed to do. Let’s look at a screenshot of twitterfeed’s homepage:
You’ll notice there are instructions, but let’s clarify what they mean. Step one refers to where your blog feed will be posted. Since we’re focusing on twitter usage, you can guess we’ll be using twitterfeed to update your blog posts to twitter. Step two and three? Well, we’ll cover those in a few minutes. For now, let’s focus on step two:
Twitterfeed relies on OpenID accounts instead of having you create yet another username. Some of the common accounts which are “OpenID” friendly include AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and more. Click on the “Login to twitterfeed” link, and you’ll proceed to the login page. now, notice the OpenID button to the right of the OpenID Login field. If you click on that, you’ll get a drop-down menu with a bunch of different account login options:
For this example, we’re going to use a Yahoo! account. So, select Yahoo!, and proceed to the next step. Your browser will be redirected to the Yahoo! login page. After you login and click submit, you’ll see the message below (which basically confirms that you’re using your Yahoo! ID to access twitterfeed:
Click the “Continue” button. Then your browser will login… and direct you back to twitterfeed. You should see something similar to the screenshot below:
The “Logged in as https://……” is your secure login Open ID URL. If you want to login to twitterfeed quickly, you should make sure to copy and save this URL somewhere safe! Once you’ve noted your URL, then click “go to my twitter feeds (or create new one).” Now, we are at the third step; the one where you add your blog feed so that twitterfeed can post your blog posts as twitter updates. You’ll see a page with “My Feeds” — and below that, “create new feed.” That’s what we’re going to do.
The create new feed dialogue box is probably the most time-intensive. You’ll want to take some care in setting this up, so that you don’t have to update your preferences later! I’ve noted some tips in red on this screenshot — primarily, where your twitter username/password should go (don’t forget to “test twitter authentication”). You’ll also need to find out your blog’s RSS feed (almost every blog includes an RSS feed) — paste that in the appropriate field, and click “test rss feed.”
Aside from that, you can pick how frequently twitterfeed should check your blog for updates… decide if you want the title AND description of the blog post to appear in the twitter update, and which URL-shortening service (e.g. TinyURL) you’d like twitterfeed to use for the links to your blog posts. When you’re all done, click “create.”
Now, your twitterfeed may take an hour or two to begin posting your blog updates, but be patient! You can come back to twitterfeed at any point in time, and manage your feeds (see screenshot below). And, if you have multiple twitter accounts and related blogs for each account, you can use your single twitterfeed login to manage multiple instances of twitterfeed. In the screenshot below, on the right site — see the pause button, pencil, and trash can?
The pause button — appropriately, pauses your twitter feed. If you click pause, no blog posts will be published as twitter updates until you unpause the twitterfeed. The pencil allows you to edit your twitterfeed settings (i.e. title/description, feed url, tweet prefix). And lastly, if you ever want to delete your twitterfeed, just click on the trashcan.
The creator of twitterfeed, @mario, is more than happy to answer questions. I had a few for him when I was setting up my first twitterfeed — and Mario was very helpful in our twitter conversation!
Oh, and one more step! Once you’ve set up your twitterfeed, make sure to send a tweet my way (@learnwithbetsy) — I would love to hear if this article was helpful for you!
