9 minute guide to creating an auto-update Twitter for your newspaper
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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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April 15th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
[…] 9 minute guide to creating an auto-update Twitter for your newspaper. Go do it. Right now. Don’t worry if “your customers” aren’t on Twitter. Some of them are. Some will be. And even if no one is there, it doesn’t cost you a cent. Via, appropriately, Shawn Smith’s Twitter feed. […]
April 15th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
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
April 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
actually, you don’t need an email address to create a Twitter account (you can enter anything in, it doesn’t matter)
April 16th, 2008 at 5:51 am
@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.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:04 am
[…] TwitterFeed: I’ve used this one several times and works like a charm. Must have an OpenID. Check out my screencast on how to set up your own auto-update twitter using twitterfeed. […]
April 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
[…] Media Bytes has a sweet tutorial on how to auto-update Twitter. If only there was a way that LoMediaCo’s could use this functionality to their […]
April 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
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
April 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
@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!
April 16th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
You get massive cool points for finding that picture.