Automating Twitter Keeps Content Fresh & Visitors Interested
Ok let’s assume you now have your Twitter account up and running, we are now going to deal with automating Twitter to provide fresh content for your followers. My Blog Review will show you in this simple step by step guide, how to provide an endless supply of fresh themed content for your followers. You could probably sit at your PC and churn out a handful or so of witty little Tweets, but you will soon dry up, or simply run out of material! Doing this for a hour or two is one thing, but pushing out a couple of dozen Tweets per day can become more of a headache than writing articles for your blog.
1. Give Your Followers Fresh Content
Ok the easiest & best way I have found to do this, is to first setup a free gmail account if you don’t already have one..?
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Now we need to find Google Alerts so click more as shown above & then at the bottom of the menu click even more. Then click on the bell icon (Google Alerts)
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Set the four boxes as shown below
1. First box enter a search term / keyword related to your Twitter account..? This ensures that your content stays in theme!
2. Next leave as comprehensive. This will provide all manner of content including videos.
3. Next set to “as it happens” This ensures your content is news & gets reported as it happen, not 3 weeks later!
4. Change from email to Feed & then save. Important if you want it automated.
Repeat this process 4 – 5 times using different keywords that are related to your blog or Twitter account. Your screen should match the image below..?
One word of advice when choosing your keywords / phrases, if you use very common terms then you will not be the only person Tweeting about it obviously!
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Getting Your Content Into Twitter
Ok now if you followed the instructions above, we should have 4 or 5 keyword related RSS feeds set up in Google Alerts waiting to be used! But how do we get them into Twitter…? Well we need the assistance of two more websites;
NOTE: You will need to have Google alerts, bit.ly & Twitterfeed all open in separate tabs in your browser, this will make things a lot easier as you will need to keep referring back to each one for details.
Ok now first of all setup a bit.ly account, what you use as a user name does not matter, it does not need to be tied to your Twitter account. Once you have your account setup, click on “account” at the top right hand corner, you should get a similar page to the one shown below !
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Now go to a fresh tab in your browser & copy & paste the link to TwitterFeed.
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Now when you arrive at the screen above, simply click “Register Now“.
After entering your details & logging in, click the button “Create New Feed“
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You should have the image above on your screen, make sure that Twitter is selected, indicated by the green dot. Then we have to authenticate the Twitter account, this is to prevent you posting to other peoples accounts. Now do not click the blue button (prone to errors), instead click the link under the blue button which says “authenticate with user name & password“
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The screen above will open, just type in your details to your Twitter account & then click the link “Test Twitter Authentication“. Once your account is authenticated, you will see the button “Continue to Step 2“. Do not try clicking this button as it doesn’t work ! Simply scroll down to Step 2.
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Ok if all is going to plan you will now have the screen shown above, which requires 4 steps to complete. Please follow the steps below.
1. Enter a Feed name. If for example the keyword for this feed was cooking, then use recipes or cooking or whatever as long as it indicates to you what this particular feed is all about.
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2. Ok now you need to go back to Google Alerts, click on the orange RSS icon on the 1st feed that you created, you get the image shown above I hope..? Scroll down through all this code, looking for the first appearance of the word “Self” in black text, select & copy all the text that is the URL for the feed & is in between the quotes ” “, but do not include the quote marks. Now return to TitterFeed & paste the URL into the box indicated.
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3. Click the button at the end of the address bar “Test RSS Feed“.
4. If it reports the RSS Feed as OK then click the button marked 4 in the above image, this is the advanced settings.
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Now we have the final 5 steps as indicated below;
1. Set check for updates to every hour.
2. Set number to post as 1 (believe me it is enough)
3. Set content to title only, this is because of Twitters restriction of 140 characters.
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4. Now go back to bit.ly as shown above and select & copy your API Key from the center of the screen. Do not take this API Key from the far left as you are likely to miss some of the characters that are hidden. Return to the TweetFeed advanced settings page & paste in your API Key, also please remember to include your bit.ly user name above the API box.
5. Finally scroll down the page until you find a button at the bottom left corner “Create Feed” click that button & your all done! Repeat this process for each of the feeds you created in Google Alerts.
Summary
Providing there is fresh content available for the keyword you used, this setup will continue to post to your Twitter account 24 hrs per day 365 days per year. But of course this does not prevent you from adding your own tweets should the need arise, you have simply automated your Twitter account to provide fresh content for your followers in the event you are too busy or otherwise engaged.
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