30 Twitter tips hath September: Ditch the Twitterfeed
In September, we’re offering a Twitter tip a day. Send us your thoughts and suggestions.
[Tweet this tip]
Day 24: Don’t use your Twitter account like
an RSS feed; ditch Twitterfeed.
Twitterfeed connects your Twitter account to an RSS feed (or many feeds), so that each time the feed is updated, it sends out a tweet via your account.
This is a bad idea.
(What’s an RSS feed? Check out “RSS in Plain English” on YouTube.)
Sure, it’s an easy way to promote your blog content (or for some reason, someone else’s blog content), but it’s lazy. It’s robotic. It’s inauthentic.
That doesn’t mean you can’t promote your blog (or anything else you want) via your Twitter feed. I tweet out “selfish tweets” (as I call them) regularly, like for this 30 Twitter tips series. But I write each one. And I try to be selective.
If readers want to subscribe to my RSS feed, the button is conveniently located in the sidebar. It’s optional and automatically updates for you. But if they want to interact with the real me, then they should follow my Twitter account, because I write every single syllable (minus retweets, which I do regularly, though I tend to rewrite many of them).
Remember: Be human. Own up to everything you write, including those short tweets every day.
Follow @WadeOnTweets for more Twitter fun.
30 Twitter tips hath September
Birmingham Blogging Academy 
I disagree. I see Twitterfeed as a service to my readers. The people I talk to locally – the Portland Web/Tech/Blog community – are drifting away from RSS and more into real-time web (eg; Twitter, Friendfeed, etc). Some of us haven’t checked our feed reader in weeks. But if I see it come up on Twitter, I’m more likely to go read it.
In fact, when I’m checking Twitter on my bbPhone – and I see a post that looks interesting – I “favorite” the tweet and go check it later. In fact, that’s what I did when I saw your tweet about this post – which is why I’m just now reading it. I subscribe to your feed, but I’m more likely to read a post when I see it tweeted.
(I see your point about inauthenticity though – but in my case it is a service)
Understood. Funny thing is, I’ve moved away from my feed reader, too.
As long as your readers are cool with it, that’s what matters most.
I’ve seen some media outlets do nothing but Twitterfeed, a huge missed opportunity on their part.
You have many options when using twitterfeed and it is very useful. Be selective, choose infrequent updates, use the RSS Feed for specific news feeds. Intersperse the twitterfeed between live conversations and other items. The Feed may enhance a conversation and your Twitter interaction.
Debby Bruck, Homeopathy World Community
Thanks, Debby. You’re right: Twitterfeed can be used for good instead of evil. However, I’ve seen many instances of the evil usages.
Your suggestions are spot on for helping those who want to use it to liven up their tweets.