Our first part will be to create an RSS feed to export all our new posts. From there we'll use Twitterfeed.com and Ping.fm to distribute the posts to all our social networks.
Creating an RSS Feed
First we'll use Ninja RSS Syndicator to create our RSS feed. (it has the unusual name because it's developed by a company based in Japan).
- Step 1: Go to Joomla.org and download Ninja RSS.
- Step 2: Download Ninja RSS onto your desktop, and you'll see a file called ninjarss_unzipme.zip. Extract that package and you should see a new folder with a component and module inside.
- Step 3: Go to Administrator >> Extensions >> Install / Uninstall and upload com_ninjarss.zip.
- Step 4: Go to Components >> Ninja RSS Syndicator >> Feeds and click "New".
- Step 5: If you want to produce a feed of your whole site, simply enter a title and click save. Otherwise, scroll down and fill in the information requested. Most importantly, you can choose to hide certain sections, categories or articles:
- Step 6: Save the feed, and you should see a screen like this:
- Step 7: Copy the entry in "Feed URL" and save it into a text editor. This will be the feed that is sent to Twitter and Facebook.
Sending your Feed to Twitter and Facebook
- Step 8: We're going to use a service called Twitterfeed to send our news automatically to both Twitter and Facebook. The first step is to visit Twitterfeed.com and register.
- Step 9: Login to Twitterfeed and click "Create New Feed".
- Step 10: You'll see a box like the one below. Enter the title, and then paste the RSS feed from Step 6:
- Step 11: Click "test rss feed" to make sure everything is OK. If it is, click "Continue to Step 2".
- Step 12: This next part allows you to send your feed to Twitter and Facebook amongst other options:
- Step 13: Twitter and Facebook will allow you to authenticate your accounts and link them to Twitterfeed directly from this page. You can also add "UTM" tags which are designed for Google Analytics. They will show in your analytics results, so you can see how much traffic has been sent from Twitter or Facebook. (Click here for instructions on using Google Analytics with Joomla).
- Step 14: The final step is a really powerful feature here that many people overlook ... Ping.fm. If you create an account and authenticate it here with Twitterfeed, you can then pass on your updates to Linkedin.com, MySpace.com, Ning.com and dozens of others. There is a full list available here.
