Following up from my previous post, Managing your social outreach with dlvr.it, I promised a follow-up with some basic how-to articles. In this article, Iâll be focusing on pushing Google Buzz to Twitter.
For those who may not know, Google Buzz is my main social network of choice. Sure, Iâm on others (hence my need for dlvr.it!) but Buzz is the main hub and as such is the first topic Iâll be writing about. For this (and following) article, I will assume you are signed up and logged in. If youâre not, head over to dlvr.it now and get it done!
Logged in? Alright then, off we go.
The first thing youâll need is your public Buzz Feed URL. Thereâs no need to go hunting around for it, as Iâve provided it here:
http://buzz.googleapis.com/feeds/USERNAME/public/posted
All youâll need to change is USERNAME. For you, thisâll either be a number or your Gmail address without @gmail.com, so for example mine would be:
http://buzz.googleapis.com/feeds/jbayton/public/posted
Simple, right? Now you have that, you can create your new Route. Whenever youâre ready, you can click that all important button!
As soon as youâve hit the button, youâll be greeted with a screen youâll no doubt become familiar with as you turn into a dlvr.it power user.. đ
Give your new route a name and hit â+ addâ in Sources. This is where weâll get your Buzz feed in and set to be pushed to Twitter when weâre done. Be prepared, there are a lot of options you can potentially set here. Iâll show whatâs required and trust you can take all the time you need to check out the other options at a later time.
Feed URL is where youâll enter the Buzz feed I posted above, though with your username, obviously.. unless you want to post my updates? Iâd be flattered, Iâm sure! I doubt youâd be too happy though..
When should we make your first post? gives you the option to post your latest Buzz, wait until your next Buzz, or to publish every Buzz youâve posted. If your Twitter account is a little slow, you may find publishing everything gives the illusion youâre (suddenly!) very active on twitter!
Feed active simply turns the source on or off. Weâll definitely want it on.
Retrieve Log may come in handy later, it shows when your source was last polled and what was delivered for you.
Weâre now ready to save the source. With this information set, all of your Buzz posts will be pushed to Twitter every 15 minutes. Wanting more control? Take a look at the menu items along the top:
Feed update allows you to set how often dlvr.it checks for new Buzzes. Itâs every 15minutes by default.
Item text allows you to define prefixes and suffixes to every Buzz, and to find & replace any content you wish within each Buzz.
Filters allow you to specify on what words will trigger dlvr.it to pick up a Buzz. You could, for example, only push Buzzes you specifically want on Twitter with a #twitter tag. Any Buzz then posted with that tag will be posted to Twitter.
Scheduling allows you to define when Feed update will run.
Location allows you to define whether location in Buzzes will be transferred to Twitter
And finally, there are some Advanced options that you may consider quickly perusing on the off-chance thereâs an option there that suits your needs.
Weâre definitely ready to hit save source now. Letâs move on.
Once youâve saved the source, your route will become visible again. Simply click on â+ addâ on Destination to add your Twitter information.
On the next screen, youâll be prompted to choose a destination. There are a number to choose from, but luckily someone has decided to place Twitter at the top of the list (itâs like they know what weâre doing).
Click new and wait for the next screen.
Almost there now â Make sure Active is ticked and click Start Authorisation. Youâll now be taken to Twitter to sign in before returning to this screen after a confirmation message. Before you click save you can again set a couple of extra options, such as what parts of your Buzz to post in Post Content and how dlvr.it will handle hashtags in Advanced.
Have you finished tinkering? As soon as you hit save youâll be returned to your route list where youâll see a new, shiny Buzz to Twitter route. The final step is to make sure Active is showing in the top right of the route, if it isnât, click it.
(Feed â Dlvrit Feed is something extra I added, you wonât see this).
And that, my good reader, is all there is to it. If youâre impatient you can hover over the Buzz source and click the little circle to the right of what Iâve called âGoogle Buzzâ. This will force a check for Buzzes. Otherwise, carry on with your day. This is sorted.
If you have any questions at all, please let me know. If not, enjoy completely hassle-free Buzz to Twitter deliveries!
Look out soon for deliveries to Facebook, Linkedin and even a way of aggregating all of your content into one simple RSS feed.
Cheers,
Jason