Cross-Posting Mayhem

This article is both a test, and also a tip for those of you with WordPress blogs.

Integrating your blog with your social networking system is a great way to get more eyes on your blog posts. Of course, if your content isn’t good you won’t get any return visits. Never mistake marketing for value. <- Forgive me if this sounds like entrepreneur-speak. I do that sometimes. It’s like verbal incontinence.

The question is, of course, “how?” Here’s how:

1. You need a WordPress blog to do this. It doesn’t need to be hosted on wordpress.com but it needs to be a WP platform blog like this one.
2. You’ll also need a Twitter and/or Facebook account. Please don’t make me explain how to get one of those.
3. Go to your Plugins sidebar menu in your WP admin system, and click “Add New.” Then do a search for “Wordbook” and another for “WP to Twitter.” Those are the two plugins you’ll want to install for your blog.
4. This article on cravingtech.com explains how Wordbook works to post your blog entries to your Facebook feed. Hint: it’s a multi-stage setup. It’s also easier than it sounds – just several clickthroughs and a quick copy-paste.
5. Follow the instructions to configure WP to Twitter to taste. You can customize the content of tweets and what sort of activity will prompt the plugin to generate a tweet.  You’ll need to provide your Twitter login, and choose a URL shortener (see below). Note that there are multiple “save” buttons in the plugin’s settings, one for each section. Move down the page and do each section in order, then hit the appropriate save button before moving on down. Each one saves settings independently and will clear out any unsaved changes in the other setting areas when clicked.

URL Shorteners

These are third-party services that generate mini-URLs (web addresses) specifically to let you post long links to services – like Twitter – that limit the number of characters you can use. I’ll provide a little more info on the WP to Twitter options here. Two of them require an API key – a text string which is used to validate your service with the shortener’s servers. It’s like a user login.

Cli.gs: The cli.gs shortener doesn’t require an API key to work, but if you have one you can use cli.gs to monitor traffic and activity which you receive via your cli.gs links. The plugin includes a link to get a free cli.gs API key.

Bit.ly: This option in WP to Twitter does require an API key but you can get one for free by signing up at bit.ly. This service seems more popular, and if you have an account it offers similar tracking services to cli.gs including the ability to search Twitter for traffic data on your shared links.

Wordpress: This isn’t really a shortener. It just sends your WordPress URL (http://domain.com/subdir/?p=123) in the typical format. This is normally short enough for Twitter though. If your custom tweet settings result in longer tweets you may want to use one of the other shortener options.

That’s all for now. If this article posts to both Facebook and Twitter, I’ve done everything right.

Here goes nothing.

UPDATE: It’s ALIVE! Bwa ha ha ha!