Image by Robert Scoble
You’ve heard about it, and sometimes feel somewhat scandalous when using the word – TWITTER !
This microblogging service is all the rage on the social mediascape and you can dig into it’s awesome power to promote your newspaper’s online content in fewer than 20 minutes! (I know I said 9 minutes in the headline, but for people that need to create an OpenID account, it might take a little more time).
Why start twittering?
Twitter is, imho, the most powerful social media tool for content syndication. If you want to get your content in front of as many eyes as possible, Twitter is a tool that can help you achieve the goal.
The greatest part about what you’ll learn in my screencast is once you set up your Twitter account, you can let it operate on its own if you want to.
What you’ll learn from the screencast :
- How to create a Twitter account
- How to use RSS to automatically update your Twitter
- The joy of telling others you’re a Twitter master
Detailed step-by-step instructions are included below the video.
How to Create an Auto-Update Twitter Account from shawn smith on Vimeo .
How to create an automatically-updating Twitter account for your newspaper
I encourage you to work with your staffers on finding ways to interact on Twitter, but since most staffs don’t have much time for social networking, starting with this auto account is a good way to get your feet wet with social content syndication.
Here’s how to start :
- Get yourself an email address, which you’ll need to create a Twitter account. You can register a free one with Gmail .
- Create a Twitter account at Twitter.com .
- Fill in the profile of your news org’s account, upload a photo and change the background. Make sure on the profile information you’ve provided a link back to the appropriate URL for your content.
- Get yourself an OpenID. You can use your Yahoo! username or get an OpenID from ClaimID or MyOpenID .
- Find an RSS feed from your news org that you want to syndicate.
- Login to Twitterfeed with your OpenID.
- Create a new Twitterfeed and fill in your Twitter account details and RSS feed.
- Start enjoying a Twitter account on auto-pilot!
Thanks for checking out this quick guide on creating an auto Twitter account. If you’re bit by the Twitter bug and want to learn more, check out my ultimate guide to Twitter tools and resources for journalists !
Are using Twitter for your news org? Point me at it! Here’s a couple lists of news orgs using Twitter: Graphic Designr and Red66.
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This is a good tutorial but not only for newspapers but for all media outlets who are new to twitter. My only other suggestion is to still check the account for replies. twitter is about the conversations even though you can use it to auto tweet your rss news feeds.
I’m @waynesutton on twitter and I support auto-updates
actually, you don’t need an email address to create a Twitter account (you can enter anything in, it doesn’t matter)
@Mark – Thanks, I didn’t know that. Here i was creating a new gmail account for every Twitter account I was making. Jeez!
@Mark Hamilton – Thanks for the link. I think you hit it right on about this being a very minimal investment for news organizations to step into the social mediascape.
@wayne – You’re right about replies. I think those are very valuable and following people back helps create a sense of relationship on this network. Great way to keep interaction going and expand the network.
Strange. I did all that you suggested and my feed hasn’t shown up yet. I just had to do a manual update to get a breaking news story up.
My twitter feed is showing up on twitterfeed.com, so it SHOULD be working.
http://twitter.com/masslive
@Kristen – I’ve noticed it can take a couple hours to kick-start but it should get going pretty soon. Looking forward to checking out @masslive!
You get massive cool points for finding that picture.
Hi:
I created a feed (http://author.voanews.com/english/customcf/twit.cfm) and successfully entered it in twitterfeed.com but the information icon informs me that “not checked yet (new feed?)”.
It has been two hours now. How long does it take usually? How do I know that the XML-generator I wrote is OK?
Hey, thanks! Just getting into twitter myself, and this makes it so much easier if you’re pushing out posts and not twittering about having a shower or something. Anyway, thanks for an easy tutorial!
Thanks for this,
It was easy to follow and setup before I even got finished reading your article! I will bookmark your site for future use.
Cheers,
Eric – roguedeals.com founder
I link twitter within friendfeed and link friendfeed into face book.. so when I do a post on friendfeed, it auto posts within twitter and facebook. Which is pretty cool I think…
thanks so much, exactly what we needed!
this will be wonderful to use when on holiday or something, i am trying to incorporate it for my work website to auto post on our twitter.
Thanks mate
great tutorial! I am sure gonna try it today..
thanks
BTW is there some more applications like twetterfeed
This even works on the iphone.. :) well cool
Twitter started as a place to shout out short pieces that Twitter defined as “What are you doing?” Basically, eating a ham sandwich was as legit to Twitter users as “my business is sponsoring a conference you MUST attend!” However, the Twitter landscape has changed, and Twitter is now the Instant Messenger of choice. Friendships are started and maintained, and whole conversation occur in 140-letter intervals (which drives many Twitterers to loner-form communications tools, like Skype). These people are VERY skeptical of others who use Twitter to JUST promote themselves or their businesses (“increase your followers!”, “whiten your teeth!”). They expect response and relationship building. And Twitter has reached a saturation point in follows: it’s a LOT harder to build a followers list than it was 6 months ago. If all you do is promote a product and DON’T engage with your followers, they WILL dump you. Be very careful with this technology. As with most new technologies, Twitter has evolved into something quite unanticipated by its inventors.
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i made autotwiiter on adobe air for all OS free on GPL
use without bans http://consolevv.ru/site/?p=1187
tell your friends about it. Open source is COOL!!!
good tutorial in this article
Thanks Shawn
Easy, clear article. Just what I am looking for and will be very useful for me
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