So, you write a blog, have a Twitter account and a Facebook Profile and/or Page, all which need updating. Here is how to do them all at once using WordPress.
What you need
- A WordPress Blog
- The FT FacePress II plugin By Alan Knox
- The Twitter Friendly Links plugin By Konstantin Kovshenin
- The Twitter Tools plugin By Alex King
How to connect it all
Instead of downloading the plugins, search for them using the Add New option under Plugins on your Dashboard and install them directly. As of this writing Twitter Tools had not been tested with WordPress 3.0 but it seems to be working just fine for me. After you have installed and Activated the plugins you will now have links to their Options page under your Settings section of your Dashboard.
FacePress II Setup
Click on “FacePress II Admin Options” and follow the instructions for either the Profile or Page method of updating Facebook (or both if you have both) to get your mobile email address. FacePress II is the best option for updating a Page that you run for a business, group, etc. Once you have entered your mobile update email address provided to you by Facebook you can “Test Facebook Connection”. You should see a test post on your Facebook page which you can then Remove to get it out of your stream. My “Post Format” is %TITLE% %URL% and the only check box I have selected is “Use Shortened URLs” which uses “Twitter Friendly Links” to make a shorter URL for your posts (Not like bit.ly etc.). If you want to have an Excerpt from your blog post sent to Facebook then you can do %TITLE% %URL% %EXCERPT%. Here are what my settings look like:
Twitter Friendly Links Setup
Twitter Friendly Links adds a “/123″ style ending to your base url, for example mine look like: http://andrewgertig.com/123. I did not change any of the default settings in Twitter Friendly Links, but make sure that your base url is what you wish to use. Only touch this once. If you do another “Test Facebook Connection” under the FacePress II Setup and you are not getting your URL to work, then under the Compatibility section of Twitter Friendly Links try selecting the “Linking fix for Twitter Tools plugin”.
Twitter Tools Setup
Click on the “Twitter Tools” link under Settings on your Dashboard to edit the options. Enter your user name and password and test the connection. If you want to use a URL shortener, Twitter Tools also has a plugin that installed with it called “Twitter Tools – Bit.ly URLs” which you need to activate. Once it is activated it adds a section to your Twitter Tools options page called “Bit.ly for Twitter Tools” where you can enter your bit.ly username and API key (sign up at http://bit.ly if you don’t have an account). Here are what my Twitter Tools settings look like:
So whenever I write a Blog post I have to look in the right hand column of the new Post editing window and select “Post to Twitter” because I do not have it set on by default. I chose to do this because you really can’t “get a Tweet back” once its out there, while you can “Remove” an errant wall post from Facebook. Also, as you can see here you can use this plugin for a widget that pulls in your Twitter feed. I don’t use it for that purpose.
If you have any questions about this setup or are having problems getting it working let me know in the comments below.
