I‘ve been a big fan of Twitterfeed for quite some time. Matter of fact, it was the main way I fed blog posts into Twitter’s timeline.
Did you notice I said was?
You see, Google recently added the same option within their Feedburner service and it rocks!
Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t have too many more features than Twitterfeed but just having the ability to link everything up within Google makes my life easier.
Now before I go through the steps on how to set it up, if you’d prefer to use Twitterfeed, check out How to Feed Your Chiropractic Blog Posts into Twitter Using Twitterfeed. It’ll take you through the proper steps on how to do so.
But, if you’d rather streamline your life and keep things under one roof, allow me to walk you through on how to setup Socialize within your Feedburner account.
First of all, you need a Feedburner account. But, don’t panic because if you have a Google account, it comes included with their bundled services.
Just go to feedburner.google.com and log in using your Google account login information.
If you’ve already burned your blog’s feed, simply click on your feed’s title …
… then click on the Publicize tab.
Once selected, look down the left-hand sidebar under Services for Socialize.
The first thing you’ll need to do once inside Socialize is to add a Twitter account.
When you click on the Add a Twitter account button, you’ll be taken to Twitter’s authorization page to link your Twitter account with Google.
Simply enter your Twitter username and password, click on Allow and you’ll be transported right back to the Socialize page.
Next, double-check to make sure your Twitter account actually linked and proceed to the Formatting Options.
Within the Formatting Options, choose the options that best serve your needs.
For my @NextGenChiro account, I’ve chosen to post the title with a shortened URL link and to leave room for retweets. I’ve also chosen not to add hash tags as a personal preference.
Under Item Selection, I’ve set the Item Limit to post up to one new item per feed update. I choose this and strongly recommend you do the same unless you want to blast your Twitter timeline with multiple feeds simultaneously. One caveat: If you do, expect to lose followers over time because people will view it as autobotting your timeline.
Once you’re happy with your settings by reviewing the Sample Item Preview pane, click on the Save button to activate this service.
That’s it!
Now, just sit back and allow Google to feed your blog posts into Twitter each time you publish a post.
Wow, great post! I was just getting ready to set this up with my Feedburner account last night and didn’t get to it. Thanks for the tips because it’s sure to be much easier for me now!
Dr. James :: Glad I could help! And, keep up the great work over at Clinically Significant Productions.
Thanks for sharing your tips for how you are using new Google’s Socialize feature. Not to mention what to set it on Under the Item Selection “set the Item Limit to post up to one new item per feed update.” As when you first set it up I noticed you blasted your Twitter time line with multiple feeds but quickly tweeted an apology and corrected it. I expect you didn’t lose followers because of it since we all know you are definitely not an auto botting spammer.
I set mine up but have not activated it yet, only because, unlike Twitterfeed, Google does not allow you to put additional text at the both the beginning and the end. As I like to put the #in tag at the end to also feed it to LinkedIN too. As per your post titled, “How to Connect Your Twitter Account to Your LinkedIn Profile”
Of course on January 5th Twitterfeed went down and I had to manually post everything, which wouldn’t have happened if I was using Google! Well Twitterfeed is back up so I am continuing to use it, but as soon as Google allows me to put additional text at the both the beginning and the end I’m hitting the Activate button!
Well as I was commenting on this post my feed failed to go out on Twitterfeed again! So getting fed up I deleted it and went to Google’s Feedburner to hit activate but now it won”t let me do it. It’s saying my feed is to large! Yet it went out in the RSS feed correctly! Anyway, it will get posted later because I use SocialOomph (aka TweetLater) too. I just added the #in tag to it to post it to LinkedIN.
So Dr. MacNamara, any suggestions on how to reduce my feed to get under Feedburner’s 512Kb limit in order to use Google’s Socialize feature? I already tried Word Press help forum’s suggestions of reducing the number of syndicated feeds and the summary only option but it’s not working.
Dr. Heins :: Problems with RSS feeds typically mean that your XML file is either invalid or has errors in its syntax. Go to W3C Feed Validation to determine what the problem is and then correct the syntax.
Once complete, your feed should be good to go.
Thanks Dr. MacNamara! I managed to fix the problem with your help and not only is Google Socialize working now but I found out that my Email updates were not going out either! Don’t know what I’d do without you! Of course I wouldn’t even know what a Blog was if it wasn’t for you! 🙂