According to a research study conducted by PEW research, as of February 2012, 15% of all adults online use Twitter and 8% do so on a typical day. The numbers are even higher as you dip into the younger generations with one quarter (26%) of users between ages 18-29 using Twitter, nearly double the rate for those ages 30-49. Finally, among the youngest internet users (those ages 18-24), 31% are using Twitter.
Although it’s not ideal to have to log on each and every day to update your feed with new information, all of the social signal activity from these type sites continue to be influential when measured by Google and other search engines when they rank web sites, which makes it increasingly important to ensure that Twitter and other social networks remain a part of your Internet marketing strategy.
For marketers, updating a Twitter account each and every day (especially those with multiple businesses or multiple sites) is not just tedious – but it can also be a down right pain in the arse.
Meet TwitterFeed.com
TwitterFeed.com is a free service which allows you to select a feed, such as an RSS feed from your blog (or any other content that supports RSS feeds), and have it automatically posted to your Twitter account periodically. It’s advanced options allow you to choose between 1 and 5 posts at a time and will post as often as every 30 minutes if you like.
TwitterFeed.com will also automatically post a link to your update or a link anywhere else you desire. It automatically posts to Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com too, although the bulk of my own experience with it is specifically for Twitter.com.
It is important to remember that while TwitterFeed.com automates your updates to Twitter but does lack the human element often required to get an account to really take off. So while it will indeed automate the entire process of updating your Twitter account and keep your page ‘alive’ instead of dead, you’ll still want to poke in on it once in a while because it won’t interact with users for you on your behalf, or follow anyone, it’ll just post updates.
What If You Don’t Have Your Own Blog or RSS Feed?
This is where it gets ‘really interesting’ – you don’t need one! TwitterFeed.com will post any content or information you want to your Twitter profile provided that it is supported by an RSS feed…. And it doesn’t have to be your own content either. You can choose to pull news that’s related to your niche or business and post it on Twitter – automatically, all day if you like.
Let’s say you were in the real estate business in say, Las Vegas. You can have TwitterFeed.com post local real estate news from Yahoo, or your multiple listings if they’re on a feed, or anyone’s multiple listings for Las Vegas provided there is a feed. It’s all relevant to what you do, and it will help people find you. People who are interested in what your posting about. Maybe they’ll find out more about you. Maybe they’ll click onto your web site. Activity means eyeballs, clicks, visits, and algorithmically, social signals.
How Easy Is It To Set-Up TwitterFeed to Post Automatically?
TwitterFeed.com is one of the simplest tools to use, and is also easy to hook it up to your Twitter account. If you’ve been able to sign-up to Twitter, you’ve very likely got what it takes to set up TwitterFeed.com yourself.
1) First you need to sign up for a TwitterFeed.com account at http://twitterfeed.com/users/new
2) Then you need to Log in at the homepage of TwitterFeed.com
3) Then you need to click on “create feed” (top left on your dashboard when you log-in)
4) After you have clicked on ‘Create New Feed” you’ll get to a different screen where you can name your feed anything you like (it won’t appear on Twitter) and then you can put the link to the RSS feed you want to add (this is the link where the RSS feed is coming from – For instance, if you were running a WordPress blog, it would be yoursite.com/feed/).
5) Next is the advanced settings where you can add additional links or hash-tags.
6) The next screen lets you choose the services you want to connect to. You’ll need to Authenticate (verify) an account to use which will connect you to Twitter or whatever service you’re wanting to connect to (Facebook.com or Linkedin.com). You’ll need to log in to those platforms and ‘allow’ TwitterFeed.com to post on your behalf.
Click “Authorize app” and you’re done.
How To Find Relevant RSS Feeds in the Event You Don’t Have One
If you don’t have an RSS feed of your own targeted on your niche, there is plenty of people who probably do whom won’t mind you using theirs. That’s what RSS feeds are for, syndicating content. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds benefit the publishers who offer them by letting other syndicate content automatically. They actually want you to use their feeds, that’s why they offer them, to ensure their content is found far and wide.
To find relevant RSS feeds, simply go to Google.com and search for “{your niche} RSS feeds”. I’m confident you’ll easily find plenty of RSS feeds to use.