Jaimie Dobson Internet Consultant

Link Your LinkedIn and Twitter Accounts Together

Back in July I posted a “How to” article which walked you through the steps needed to update your LinkedIn status with your Twitter Tweets.

The article has proven to be one of the most popular ones on my blog judging by the stats in Google Analytics and as a post; ranks well in Google for search terms such as “How to update LinkedIn from Twitter“.

The question of “How do I update my LinkedIn status every time I send a Tweet through Twitter?” is a common one asked by attendees of my Twitter workshops and seminars, so I thought I’d update you with another post on the same subject which also gives you an alternative method; all be it one that still uses the same concept as the one described in my previous post.

So here goes…

Update Your LinkedIn Status Everytime You Tweet

Understanding The Principal

The mechanism of how this works is:

1. You post a Tweet in the normal manner either directly through the Twitter site itself or through the myriad of third party Twitter clients and applications that are available. For example Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are too of the most common Twitter clients.
2. Your Tweet appears in your Tweet timeline and more importantly for this exercise, the RSS Feed of your Tweets. (In my case, this RSS Feed looks like this)
3. This RSS Feed of your Tweets is piped through to Ping.fm using a Twitter RSS feeder tool such as Twitterfeed. Ping.fm is a free web based service that allows to update multiple social media accounts from a single location.
4. Ping.fm then updates your LinkedIn status with your latest Tweet which has been sent to it via your Twitter RSS feeder tool such as Twitterfeed.

So in simple terms the path a Tweet takes is this;

1. Twitter Client (optional)
2. Twitter
3. Twitter RSS Feed Tool (e.g. Twitterfeed)
4. Ping.fm
5. LinkedIn Status

Do You Need the Twitter RSS Feed Tool?

Following my last post on this matter, some people have asked “What purpose does the “Twitter RSS feed tool serve and is it needed?”

It is possible to ignore the Twitter site and it’s associated Twitter clients and simply post Tweets directly through the Ping.fm website. Configuring Ping to work in this manner is straightforward enough and can, at the same time, be used to distribute the Tweet directly to your LinkedIn status. This method negates the need to have a Twitter RSS feed tool such as Twitterfeed. However I find Ping.fm to be a primitive Twitter client with limited Tweet management features. But because you can Tweet directly from Ping.fm – for those that choose to, there’s no need for the Twitter RSS feed tool.

What the Twitter RSS feed tool does in this process, is that it allows you to continue using your favourite Twitter client. As such, you don’t have to sacrifice functionality for the sake of posting your Tweets to LinkedIn by using Ping.fm as your primary Twitter client.

However if you like Ping.fm, then fair enough!

Using Hootsuite to Feed Tweets through to LinkedIn

If you use Hootsuite as your Twitter client tool of choice as I do, then you can use this great tool as the Twitter RSS feed tool in the path I describe about. In otherwords Hootsuite has the dual properties of being your Twitter client and RSS feeder tool into Ping.fm

In which case the route your Tweets will take to LinkedIn are:

1. Hootsuite
2. Ping.fm
3. LinkedIn Status

Step by Step Instructions

You will need…

1. An active Twitter and LinkedIn account (obviously)
2. A Hootsuite account configured with your Twitter account
3. A Ping.fm account

Step 1

1. Login to your Ping.fm account. If you don’t have an account sign-up for one free at http://ping.fm
2. Add LinkedIn as a ‘Social Network’ making sure that the ‘Status Updates’ box is ticked during the process.
3. Whilst still logged into your Ping.fm account, go to http://ping.fm/key and copy the long Application Key number that is given to you.

Application Key in Ping.fm

Step 2

1. Login to your Hootsuite account at http://hootsuite.com
2. Click on the “Settings” button in the bottom left next to the “Streams” and “Stats” buttons.
3. Click on the “Ping.fm” tab near the top of the page.
4. Paste in the Application Key copied from the Ping.fm site in Stage 1.3 above, into the space provided on the page.
5. Select the Twitter profile(s) for which tweets will be sent to Ping.fm
6. Click the “Save Ping.fm Settings” button

Adding your Ping.fm Application Key to Hootsuite

That’s it you’re done!

Now, every time you send a Tweet to Twitter through Hootsuite, it will also be set as a status update in your LinkedIn account.

Note: This method will not post the other RSS feeds you may have set up in your Hootsuite account or Direct Messages (DM) through to your LinkedIn status.

Let me know how you get on by posting your comments below.

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Tags: Social Networking, Twitter