Twitterfeed.com Configuration Problems?

Today, I was preparing to demonstrate how to set up http://www.Twitterfeed.com and realized my feed wasn’t functioning properly.

My blog URL (which works fine as an RSS feed in Facebook apps) wasn’t working for Twitterfeed. It seems a title tag was missing from the code of my new Wordpress theme.  I utilized the tool Feed Validator http://feedvalidator.org/ to identify the problem.

A more common problem is finding the RSS feed URL.  With some applications, your standard URL will work as your RSS feed URL. If not, find your RSS feed URL like this:

• Open your blog in a browser as shown below.
• Left click the RSS feed icon as shown in image below.
• Select from the RSS feeds available.

There are different families of RSS feeds available. I have these two RSS options on my blog. Both work with twitterfeed.com.

http://www.michellecullison.com/feed/

http://www.michellecullison.com/feed/atom/

If you have a Wordpress blog, you can also feed your blog posts into twitter using the wordpress plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-poster/faq/.

Automation eases the pain of social media time drain.  Setting this up or hiring someone to do it, is well worth the investment.

Extending your blog to the active twitter sphere is a good business decision.

Contact me to hire my team to help you get started.

GETTING STARTED ON TWITTER

Are you on Twitter?  Are you tweeting? Who are you following? Have you been re-tweeted?  How often do you get DMs? 

These are the questions floating around business networking conversations these days. Newbies to social networking are nervous because Twitter is an unknown territory— a very strange one at that!  Who speaks in 140 character snippets? It takes some getting used to.  At first glance, it makes no sense. A glimpse at a home page on Twitter shows fragmented, one-sided conversations happening now. You may wonder, “How can this be useful?” But, with all the success stories on Twitter, many are considering a move to this unique new communication platform. How about you?

To get started, create a personal profile and connect with a few trusted people that you know in real life. Practice on each other.  Post some updates to your profile. Ask a friend to @ message you. To @message is to reply publicly to a tweet (a status update on Twitter.) To reply privately or send a message privately is DM or Direct Message. Send your trusted friends a DM – a direct message (the Twitter version of email). Get your feet wet with this new tool. Don’t be afraid. Remember that EVERYONE is fairly new to this and even the “experts” will make a “mistake” every now and then.

When you sign up on Twitter, try to secure your first and last name as your username. This will help you establish your personal brand and build your personal online reputation. And, it is cheap (free) insurance to protect you from someone who may want to masquerade as you on Twitter. (If you have a business name, go ahead and create an account for your business also to secure the username even though you may not be ready to use it.  Getting started personally will familiarize you with the tools so that you can better understand how to use this tool for your greater business purposes.

Like most things in life, experience is the BEST teacher. Join the Twitter crowd today.

Feel free to post Twitter questions as comments to this post on my blog. Or, better yet, Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcullison and send me a DM!

You better not be Twishing on Twitter

I missed one on the WSJ web 2.0 quiz this morning. (I actually guessed it-but only because it was multiple choice!) Here is the question: What is twishing?

A. An online game like whist

B. Scamming users of Twitter

C. Hoping the T will arrive

D. A Wii-based online dance craze.

Answer: B. Scamming users of Twitter

Like me, you’ve probably heard of phishing scams-the emails that imitate messages from banks or other online accounts-and invite you to login. When you do, you are actually logging into a fake site allowing hackers to obtain your login/password combination and access your real account. Well, twishing is just like that-except it is used exclusively to gain access to twitter accounts. You can avoid the problem by not clicking on suspicious links in tweets or in email. If you do click on a link, carefully examining the URL of the page you land on. For example, if someone tweets or emails a website link to you, make sure you look before you login when you land on what looks like twitter.com. Check the URL, if it says this: http://twitterblog.access-logins.com/login or anything other than http://www.twitter.com, don’t login.

Have you been twished? How about phished? Share your story.

Adding Twitter to Facebook, MySpace and more…

If you want to integrate your Twitter profile into your Facebook Profile, MySpace profile or other web space, visit this page offered by Twitter, http://twitter.com/widgets, select Facebook (or your choice) and follow the instructions.

Getting your social sites integrated with each other is one way to build your following in multiple locations so you will be ready to build relationships and build your business in 2009!