April 23, 2013

How to Automate RSS Feeds to GooglePlus

For a long time Google+ has been just another social media tool we’ve all been told we need to jump on board with. With all the changes to other social media sites like Facebook recently, users have become frustrated and some have even closed up shop to see what Google+ has to offer.

Bloggers are running to the next big thing in social media and with a constant changing market, keeping up with as much reach as possible is beneficial, even if we don’t fully understand how one of these tools can truly help us but that leaves limited time on each social media outlet.

With manual feeding we don’t always have time to physically be online when peak times should be intercepted; auto-feeding has become useful to bloggers however with Google+ many bloggers have been at a loss for how to do this. Since Hootsuite updated some features, auto-feeding to social media accounts has become easy.

First you will need to have your own Hootsuite account. I use the free version which allows you to link a few social media accounts without going pro.

Click the owl icon to add your Google+ Profile; you will be asked to connect your business page later.

Next click on the Publisher icon, RSS Feeds then RSS/Atom and click on the plus sign to add a feed. When the input box pops up you will need to fill out the RSS Feed URL you want to auto-syndicate to your Google+ page and your preferred options. I sometimes post more than once a day; setting my feed to be checked every 6 hours to catch on the same day works for me but you may want to set yours to every 24 hours.

Now when you look in your RSS/Atom Feeds for Hootsuite, you will see your Google+ Page, be sure it is set to “On”; you can edit this or add others at any time.

As you can see, that was quick and painless. Now you can be assured that all your blog posts will reach Google+ for the quality linkage that other social media sites are lacking.

If you like this post or it helped you, please +1 this post, share on your other social networks if you are feeling generous and add me on Google+ on my personal profile and my This Lil Piglet page where I will be spending more time.

If you want a follow back on your Google+ accounts, leave your link in the comments and I will follow. Join me here on the blog for new Tech Tips and Tutorials every Tuesday!