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    • Fri Nov 07, 2008

    Google Alerts to Twitter

    twitterfeedA reader asked me how to get Google Alerts to post to Twitter automatically so I thought maybe others would like to know as well.

    Google Alerts allows you set-up a custom alert notification anytime Google picks up whatever you track – name, product, company, industry, etc. Initially you could only get email alerts but now these alerts can come via RSS.

    So, getting your Google Alerts to post to Twitter is pretty easy now. To get them to post to Twitter you need a go between like Twitterfeed.

    1) Set up your alert and choose the “feed” option for deliver to – right click the feed link and copy the URL for the feed, it will look something like this
    http://www.google.com/alerts/feeds/17750747914485789296/10802436034005942849

    2) Then go to your twitterfeed account and link that URL to your Twitter account and you should be done. The posts will go to Twitter at whatever frequency you set up in your Google Alerts – daily or as they happen. This works equally well if you want to post your blog feed, or any RSS for that matter, to Twitter.

    I don’t know that this is a great, primary strategy for Twitter use, but it can be a way to mix in some tweets, but beware, whatever Google Alerts catches will post to your Twitter stream unfiltered.

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on Nov 07, 08 | 1:01 pm
    Category: Social Media | Tags: , , ,

    Comments
    « I Didn’t Know You Did That | Home | A Mobile Marketing Primer »
    • Yes, it's that beware that would scare me. I would unfollow anyone who loaded up my home page with Google Alerta on their topics. And do Goole Alerts conform to the 140 character limit? I guess I'll count the characters when they next come in.
    • John Jantsch
      @David - twitterfeed truncates the abstract and provides a tinyurl like so yes 140, as for the filler up worry, that's not the concern so much, it can be set for once a day with just a link and many people post once hourly, the be aware is that you are linking yourself to automatic content. For instance an alert for "SEO" would turn up good and not so good SEO stories.
    • This would probably be useful if you set up a secondary Twitter account, set it's updates to private, and was the only one that followed it.
    • The power of the internet just never ceases to amaze me. It is so much more than the sum of its parts and the applications and services are just astounding. The next ten years is sure going to be interesting...everything is getting more and more miniaturised and personal, with the mobile device set to become an all encompassing tool. Twitter serves to connect people on a more personal level, helping break the "isolated box" syndrome of modern society to a degree, or maybe reinforcing it?
    • John Jantsch
      @Travis and others - I think you are looking at this too narrowly. This doesn't have to be a broad alert that produces mounds of tweets. What about a very laser focused alert term that turns up a weekly nugget and links to the source. That's no different that when people tweet something of interest they stumbled upon. The trick is to be very specific on the alert you point this way.

      I don't know what the point of setting up a private twitter account and just sending that which you already can have sent to your RSS reader or email. This is a laser tool not a dump truck.
    • Useful but the google alerts often bring me something unexpected.
    • Is quiet straightforward as users can create different beeps to get contended results. You can create an alert of your name and nickname. The domain notification can be created to know if someone on twitter is linking your site or blog.

      See link http://startupmeme.com/tweetbeep-google-alerts-...
    • I'd like to suggest an alternative to streaming every Google alert into Twitter. Since alerts can be received in RSS now, subscribe to the alert feed in Google Reader and select the "Share" option. Use the feed from the Google reader profile for TwitterFeed and you'll be able to designate which items from the feed appear on Twitter (or elsewhere).
    • John Jantsch
      @Pete - nice filter technique - I've also used the Feedheads application to post updates inside of Facebook in this manner.
    • John, thanks for excellent job covering this topic.
      Pete, your comment pinpoints my inquiry, except that I wish to post to a blog (Blogger) rather than Twitter.

      I already have an alert with results in Google Reader and can create a gadget (acts as a news feed) and post to my blog, but can't quite figure out how to filter using the technique you mentioned.
      Please extrapolate if you can?

      Thanks!!
    • Greg
      Thanks for the article. I did this and the feed goes to my status on twitter. I just want a direct message with the info. Is that possible??
    • It is the unfiltered aspect that is dangerous. I have done a lot of research on this and I think the best strategy is to set up a separate alert account at Twitter. You can identify this as the result of Google Alerts, and make it available as a resource. That way you aren't identified as the direct source of the tweets. You don't want to hide your involvement, but you do want to make it clear that these are autotweets. I have been running a test on an auto-tweet account based on Google Alerts with very positive results. You can get the details on my blog:

      http://www.alertrank.com/mrgooglealerts/2009/06...

      I think the key is full disclosure of the source. Once you establish the account, and have followers who have opted in, you can add your own tweets with whatever message you choose. As long as you are transparent, this seems completely ethical. It isn't spam, because you aren't doing any following. You are just allowing others to choose to follow you.
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