How to Incorporate Twitter With Your Blog – Part 6 of Twitter Marketing Series

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Now, the whole reason why you (and I) signed up for Twitter was to promote your business, right?

Well, one of the most important ways you can do that is by both promoting your blog posts on Twitter and promoting your Twitter account on your blog. In this part of the series, I’ll explain to you how to do both.

Installing the Twitter Widget on Your Site

1. Go to http://www.twitter.com/badges
   
2. Pick whichever application suits your needs; if you use something that’s not listed (like WordPress) then choose “Other”.
3. You’ll be given the option of choosing either an html or flash interface. Unless the rest of your site is in flash and you haven’t gotten any complaints from your users, then choose the html version that everyone will be able to use.
4. If you select HTML, you can then customize your badge and choose how many posts you want to display at a time. (Anywhere from 1 to 20 but 5 is the default.) You can also choose to customize the title or have no title at all.
   
5. Next, take the code that Twitter gives you, copy it and then go to the template file for your site, and paste it in where you want the Twitter widget to appear. If you are using WordPress than add a text widget and enter the code into that for your side bar. You can also add it right into a post if you want.

Posting Blog Updates on Your Twitter Account

Now, of course, the simplest way to do this is manually. But if you automate posting updates to your blog, then it’s one less thing that you have to remember to do. There are different options to do this (plugins or third party services) but the one that I prefer to use is http://www.twitterfeed.com (I mentioned this in other posts). TwitterFeed uses your RSS feed to automatically send an update out on Twitter whenever you update your blog PLUS I am going to show you in another lesson how you can use TwitterFeed to keep your Twitter account active and full of targeted info that your followers will truly like… but more on that later.

Here are the detailed steps to take to set up TwitterFeed, I also crated a short video (see bottom of this post) that walks you through it step by step

1. First of all, you’re going to need an Open ID. If you’re using WordPress, you’ve already got one. If you don’t have one, click the “get Open ID” link provided by TwitterFeed.
2. Once you’re logged in, click on “go to my twitter feeds (or create a new one)”.
3. You’ll need to copy your RSS feed URL; make sure to copy it exactly or the link won’t set up properly. TwitterFeed lets you test the link to make sure you did it right.
4. Then, you have to pick the frequency at which you want TwitterFeed to check for updates to your blog. If you want every new post from your blog to be added, then I recommend you select every 30 minutes.
5. You can then choose what is included in the Tweet – just the blog title, or the title and a description. I recommend on the title.
6. Always choose to include a link – how else do you expect people to get to your site?
7. TwitterFeed also lets you choose which URL shortening service you want to use; pick the one you use for all of your other links… BUT I highly recommend you use one that allows you to track stats and this is why I HIGHLY recommend http://www.bit.ly (I explain more about this in the video).
8. You can prefix each tweet, if you choose, with about 20 characters; you can either put something fairly simple, like “New Blog Post” or leave it blank and let the post’s title speak for itself. I personally leave it blank.
9. Save all of your settings, and you’re done. Once you have, it will show up under ‘My Feeds’; from there, you can edit it (change the settings), make it inactive, or delete it altogether.

Twitter Marketing Tips on YouTube

TwitterFeed is a great way for you to promote your blog using Twitter. It ensures that your followers are updated with new blog posts in a timely manner. It also ensures that you don’t inadvertently spam your followers because you forgot that you already told them about that post, or even worse, forget to promote a blog post at all.

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3 Responses to “How to Incorporate Twitter With Your Blog – Part 6 of Twitter Marketing Series”

1. Twitter Marketing for Your Business FREE Blog Series | John Cow dot Com says:

   May 13, 2009 at 3:01 pm

   [...] How to add Twitter to your blog [...]

   Twitter Marketing for Your Business FREE Blog Series | John Cow dot Com's lastest..By: Retweet and Get Followers - Twitter Marketing Part 5 | John Cow dot Com
2. Gurubob says:

   May 13, 2009 at 9:39 pm

   Hi John,

   Thanks for the headsup re integrating Twitter into a Wordpress blog. Very timely and just what I needed.

   Gurubob
3. AndrewBoldman says:

   June 4, 2009 at 10:51 am

   I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.