Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Send Blog Posts to Twitter

I recently started using Twitter, to follow the Boston Marathon. It's great for events like that. But then I also found out how to make my new blog posts appear on Twitter as if I had "tweeted" them, in the Twitter "timeline" as if they were part of the conversation. It's not hard - here's how:
  • Go to Feedburner and create an account. If you are already on Blogger, you can use that account - you will notice that Feedburner.com actually resolves to a Google address.
  • Under "Burn a feed right this instant," enter your blog address. Next >>
  • Then select a feed source. The default is Atom - I have used that.
  • On the WELCOME! page, click NEXT >>
  • On the CONGRATS! page, click "Skip directly to ..."
  • On the Publicize tab, select Socialize.
  • On the Socialize page:
    • Add your Twitter account. Then,
    • Change Post content to "Title and Body." This just means that the "tweeted" content will be the title and the first line or two of the body, instead of just the title. Or don't change it.
    • Be sure to ACTIVATE at the bottom of the page.
I do notice a time lapse between the blog post and the tweet appearing on Twitter. Maybe 20 - 30 minutes? I haven't timed it. Perhaps that's an intentional delay in Blogger, to allow time for the inevitable blog-post corrections before the RSS feed is generated. Just a guess.
Don on Twitter (opens in a new window)