Real Estate Blog - How to Feed Your ActiveRain Blog Directly to Facebook and Twitter

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How to Feed Your ActiveRain Blog Directly to Facebook and Twitter - Get More Exposure for the Same Effort!

I have been out of town for several days, having attended the RE Barcamp in Houston. Before I left, I wrote a post about leads that I have garnered from AR along with other social media sites:

How I Managed to Receive Leads from ActiveRain, Twitter and Facebook!

I told my wife jokingly that I need to travel more often, since that post gained me an additional 53 subscribers! I might need to go to Houston every month. :)

At any rate, I promised the comments to write a post about how to automatically feed your AR blog to Facebook. I also later received several emails and phone calls about this. I will do my best to make this easy to follow:

First, log in to Facebook.

Then, go straight to this page: http://www.facebook.com/apps/

In the search box on the Application Directory page, type in "blogcast". It should bring up this application:

Add the Simplaris Blogcast application and set it up to capture your ActiveRain RSS feed. Your feed for ActiveRain is easy - mine is http://activerain.com/blogs/jasoncrouch/rss (all of them here follow the same format.

Your Blogcast will show up under your Profile page and each update appears on your Wall.

There is another application there called "My Blogs" that you could use if you prefer. Both Simplaris Blogcast and My Blogs serve pretty much the same function, the best that I can tell.

TWITTER

I also had some folks ask me how to get your posts to show up on your Twitter stream. This is very easy to set up now, since the AR staff was kind enough to add this feature awhile back.

Simply go to your "My Home" page on AR (this is found at the top right of every page):

Then, click on "My Settings":

You will then see this box:

Just fill in your Twitter Username and Password and make sure you click on the Update button to save your settings. I wouldn't recommend tweeting your "members only" posts, but that's just me.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I am happy to help!

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jasoncrouch

If you enjoyed this post, why not connect with me in these other communities?

If you're looking for a home in the Austin area, you can visit my primary Austin real estate website at www.austintexashomes.com. Thanks!

Posted by Jason Crouch, Broker - Austin Texas Real Estate (512-796-7653) on 10/26/2008 05:45 PM

Comments (184)

Tutorials in the ActiveRain Channel

facebook, twitter, feed, rss

Originally posted at: Austin Texas Real Estate Blog (and other stuff): How to Feed Your ActiveRain Blog Directly to Facebook and Twitter - Get More Exposure for the Same Effort!

Post is included in group: Social Networks
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: HELP/FAQ (Read 'Purpose Statement' Carefully!)
Post is included in group: Dedicated Bloggers
Post is included in group: Active Rain Newbies

184 Comments on How to Feed Your ActiveRain Blog Directly to Facebook and Twitter - Get More Exposure for the Same Effort!

OCT

2008

Jason this is great for those who have wanted to set it up but did not know how. I ahve helped a few get it done. I got my 1st listing from Facebook last week:)

I have helped many too with this feature...they really like it

Thanks. I need to get on the ball with this. I appreciate your tutorial.

Thanks I've been trying to figure it out and it just wasn't working!

Jason, Thanks for the tutorial. I have twitter set up (although I have not been a big fan). I'm going to try to like it. I had not set facebook up yet so followed your tutoriarl and you are a good instructor. That is not my forte; just ask Liz (lol).

Hi Jason

Excellence information on how to feed your active rain post to both face book and twitter along with the how do instructions is very helpful I will set it up.

Good luck and success

Lou Ludwig

Thanks - I just went and set it up on Facebook, and it works!

Awesome information, was wonedring if there was an easier way rather than cut copy paste for facebook

Jason - Thank you so much for this information! I'm going to have to come back later and figure it out... :)

Well welcome back and I know you had loads of fun. I need to get out more myself. I will be trying facebook here real soon, twitter maybe later. I do myspace but I have so much fun in the rain WOW I hate to branch out.

Jason - thanks for this info. I was already using twitter, but I just added the feed to facebook. Is there any other sites that you would recommend uploading RSS feed to? Thanks!

Ahhhhh!! You are so smart. I know i've already said that BUT I tried to figure it out & it was coming up under notes. Thanks to this post I just set it up successfully! YEA! Thanks. KM

Thanks Jason. I too am running by on a Sunday evening and need to revisit later.. my commenting helps re-find this post later.. Again thanks! Steve

At 62 I learn something new everyday.................I forget, what was it I just learned?

Actually I had been reading about Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. I'm like a kid all over again learning how to change my marketing approach. Thank you for the graphic illustrations. I always did like Dick and Jane with illustrations.

I'm not a luddite, but technology seems to move swo fast I wonder how the business schools keep up. I have Active Rain and I'd hate to put a price tag on the information I learn from this community.

Thanks!

Hi Jason - now if only I could remember my passwords for Twitter and FaceBook...... thanks for showing us how to do this. I must have missed the first go-round of posts with these instructions.

Ann

Jason - Thanks again for sharing!

great information Jason

Jason, I have a FaceBook account but have not done much with it. This is a great tutorial. I will try to set mine up.

Hi Jason... I have been playing with Facebook for a few weeks now and will definitely be needing this tutorial in the near future. Thanks for putting it together for us!

Hi, I tried to set ip up Jason, but it says I need 15 fans for them to do a feed... Does this sound right?

Judy: I got the same message. We NEED to get popular!

Jason: Many thanks for the tips...see you overe at Twitterville.

What is Facebook?

Just kidding. I promised Rich that I would try to have more fun with blogging. As soon as I set my face up, I will revisit this post to learn more.

Thanks, Jason! You ROCK!

Very nicely done. I've spent hours trying to figure out how to link my Twitter, Active Rain, Blogspot, and my website together. This helped with some of that and it was easy. Hope I don't have to walk through it again though... You rock!

Howdy Jason

Well reckon, I need to be a work-en on get-en this done myself. Thank ya for the how to info.

God Bless America

Jason - these sites are awesome. Twitter was easy but Facebook was a little more difficult. We got it up there but forget how... am just glad we are catching up on having our blog entries reach some of these other sites. it is a lot of work !! : )

Very cool thank yoooouuu! I'm jealous you must have had a terrific time at CAMP!

Thanks Jason! I hope you have a great week!!!

Jason, I will bookmark this so that I can finally figure out how to tie in my blog on Facebook.

Bookemarked and will study tomorrow when I have time THANKS JASON!!

This good. I'm still trying to learn how to add the "subscribe to my blog" portion of my posts.

jason - Thanks for the technical advise. i haven't made the best use of Facebook or twitter. Thanks again.

Thanks for sharing this Jason. I know what you mean about going out of town. It's always been the best way to almost guarantee a boost in business.

Thank you for the tutorial, Jason! I don't figure much of these out on my own, so I'm quite thankful for the help :)

Jason,

As always, your the man! Thanks for helping us newbies!!

As your non-techie sister, I am gonna need to study this a bit before I jump in. BUT...you have certainly given me the tools I need to get started. This is great tutorial. 52 new subscribers from one post!! WOW! That is pretty incredible! That is why you rock, big bro! GBU!

Jason, that is very good information, I did go immediately to my FACEBOOK but could not connect to put my blog in my profile, I will try again soon, but the informaiton you provided has help me realize that the blog should be a part of my profile on facebook.

Antonio

Thanks Jason. 11 minutes later and I'm spreading my words far and wide!

Jason, you are my new best friend! I can never figure out how to setup an RSS feed and you just gave me the answer... and it's easy! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Jason .... as always, you have great information here.. I have linked to Twitter... now just need to link facebook.

Jason,

It worked great. Thank you for your efforts.

Jason.... thanks for the explanation.... I'll take care of this tomorrow... thanks

jeff belonger

OCT

2008

Jason,

Congratulations on the Feature! I don't Twitter, but I am on Facebook. Thanks for the tutorial.

Mike in Tucson

Hi Jason, Do you hire yourself out I need help !!!

Jason- thanks for this great stuff on getting feeds to Facebook and Twitter. I have been studying all about Twitter lately. Congrats on another great feature!

I also have been in some quite in depth conversations with Internet SEO Webmasters and Studying all that Google Techs have put out there about Duplicate content. I would advise us all to put an spider no follow to all our duplicate content and only have the bots go to the original post. Since Facebook has no follow tags I am going to do some research on whether a feed to Facebook would even matter.

I do it another way and people read it...I just post the links from the blogs I want them to read.

Jason...feel honored...your blog just made it to the top of my afternoon To DO list...and that is quite an accomplishment !

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Jason again! I never knew that you can feed your Active Rain blogs to Facebook. By the way,can we do the same thing for Linkedin-LOL. But seriously Jason,thank you sooo much again. I really appreciate it. Hopefully this will draw more readers to my blog.

By the way,I was watching the Today Show on NBC and Real Estate Expert Barbara Corcoran named Amarillo,Texas and Corpus Christi Texas were among the top five Real Estate Markets to make money right now. Maybe I ought to move to Texas-LOL. And congratulations on the featured post sir. Have a great day. Great post.

Hey, I really appreciate the help! I cant wait to set up my blogs to go to my facebook!

Jason: I'm trying...I'm trying...but must be doing something wrong.

Congrats on your golden star...Good info LOL!

Hi Jason. Congrats on all those subscribers. 53 new ones? Wow, that's almost more than I have!

Any advantage to posting directly to facebook over the twitter to facebook route??

Thanks for writing,

Ken

Jason,

I followed your guide and I'm now good to go...

Thanks for tutorial!

Sean

jason - I reblogged this to make it easier for my class i'm teaching tomorrow. i set it up for my account as soon as i read your post. Thanks.

thanks, this was great help. I am on my way to setup this information.

Ken - The benefit would be that readers could see the actual headline and a brief synopsis of each post rather than just the "tweet" from Twitter. I say that it's a good idea to do both!

OK Jason. I guess it's time for me to get serious about joining the approach of linking up the power of multiple networks... I've read one too many of these twitter and facebook posts to see that I've been missing something.

Thanks for the information I did both. Just want to say my college age children were less then thrilled when I opted to do face-book. They had made a pact with friends for no parentals. Guess all those beer pong photos will not be placed so quickly by them. Ha!

Great info. Do you have to designate the blog to be able for it to feed out? Like marking it an outside blog or do all of them feed to Facebook if you add the app?

Diana - You can feed your outside blog if you prefer. Just add "/rss" at the end of the URL in order to set this up.

I will give this a try. Great info. Thank you for your help.

Jason - I just had to come back and tell you that I followed your instructions, and it worked perfectly.. Thank You! :)

Jason, I thank you so much for these valuable tips! I have felt overwhelmed by supporting my profile in several places. This makes it easy to do!

Oh! That is great...thanks for reading our comments and writing this post...this is next on my agenda!

Awesome tips as usual Jason, thank you!

Jason, browsing through your entries led me to this one which (unfortunately) is the last one I'll be able to read for the day! Thanks for guiding us through this, I'm sure it'll be extremely helpful!

Thanks Jason. I've got this bookmarked so that I can work on it tomorrow.

Jason, thanks so much for being so helpful! I just set up my blog to go to my facebook account and it was quick and easy! Thanks again.

Jason Thanks so much for the tips and the help! I did this and I still working out the dynamic of twitter. Have it use it but not really sure why? But I have become addicted to FB. Could be that I have 4 kids on it and I can check up on them, 3 in college so yes the beer pong pictures do tell a tale,

Jason, thanks to your post I have added the Facebook rss feed to my "wall".

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to go back into the settings to add "blogcasts" for old blog entries.

Any idea? When I click on the pencil I just get a "Keep" or "Remove" option.

How do I get back into the Blogcast "App" settings?

Thanks in advance!

Ben - When logged in to Facebook, you should be able to go here:

http://apps.facebook.com/flogblog/

And click on the "Settings" tab. I hope this helps!

Thank you! I book marked this and will try it later!

Brilliant. I have wondered how to do this. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

OCT

2008

OOOOH! I loved this post. How to be more tech, more out there on the internet. Walked me right through it! Great, thank you. Now I'm just messing around with it -- trying to decide if I want my outside blog, or the active rain blog. Was already feeding to Twitter --but I don't use the site well - gotta get Jennifer to give me the tutorial she promised!

Jason- You did a great job of breaking this down for everyone to use! Thank you so much for taking the time to create such a well layed out post!

Best,

Scott

Thanks for the Simplaris Blogcast recommendation Jason! Much appreciated.

As the proud sponsors of the tool, I know that the guys behind it are working very hard every day to continually enhance its value.

BTW, we are launching a service next year that we feel will be of great value to real estate brokers. Feel free to check out/subscribe to our launch blog at http://launch.simplaris.com for more info.

Thanks again,

Rob Sauchyn
Simplaris

Thanks so much Jason. I set up my blog for Facebook just like you instructed. I appreciate the information.

OCT

2008

Hi Jason,

This is great! Not sure if we're doing it right though. Is there any way to tell?

Well , will try this over the weekend - same question as above - how can I tell if I did this correctly?

Thanks Jason. I think I've accomplished both now, and referred back to this post to get it done. Your help is much appreciated.

OK...hell has frozen over. I just signed up for Twitter. There....I said it.

OCT

2008

Thanks, I think I'll check this out. I've got a facebook page but don't seem to do much with it but check up on my teenage daughter.

NOV

2008

Jason - I have put my twitter name @pamdent in the box in my active rain settings and clicked update, but my posts are not showing up on twitter. What am I doing wrong?

NOV

I am still trying to get am rss feed onto my regular website. I'll use your guide for posting on facebook. Thanks!

Jason: I just followed your instructions and placed Blogcast on my profile and it shows up - will it start blogcasting for all new posts that I do - as it now says that I have not blogcasted anything yet? I just want to make sure I did it correctly. I guess I will know with my next post. Thanks for the "how to".

NOV

Jason, I've done both. Can't tell if the facebook one is correct or not. After you put the info in the box for the Blog Description, what is the blog description text for? Also since you posted this there are now the boxes for the Listing Router, link and title. What do we put there??

Cathy - There is a lag time, as I recall (it's been awhile since I set it up originally). It should definitely show all of the new ones.

Connie - I'm sorry that I don't actually understand either of your questions. If you want to email me, I'm jason@austintexashomes.com.

NOV

I like simplicity and these directions are nice and simple ... THANKS!

Thanks for the easy to follow instructions on getting all of this put together. It will make it fall together ASAP. Have a great weekend. Well almost. Minus the wait time.

NOV

Following these instructions was very very easy. Setting these links up didn't take much work, I'm looking forward to getting my twitter feed up and running regularly

NOV

Jason,

Do you have yours set up to do an automatic feed or does Twitter automatically feed it over for you? Mine only updates once a day. I would prefer it to post as soon as I write it...

DEC

Jason : I know that you posted this blog a very long time ago, but I really found it helpful. I went right to my facebook page and was able to link my blog right on there. Thank you very much for posting this information.

DEC

Sweet info.......nice and easy just like I need it!

DEC

Thanks for the info about intergrating the blogs in facebook. I'm in the 'facebook generation' with over 700 friends, and hopefully will get some more leads for this.

DEC

Jason...I just got around to doing this....thanks for this information! How WOULD one ever figure this stuff out without people like you to help us "challenged ones!"

Thanks a Mill and Happy Holidays!

DEC

This is way cool! I can't wait to see how this works for me. Thanks for the tip!

DEC

Thanks for this great help. I am pretty new at this and can use all the help I can get.

JAN

Thanks Jason...just the answers I have been searching for!

JAN

Thanks for the great info Jason. I didn't realize you could feed your blog through to Facebook. I just have one question though. What about posts that you write on AR for 'members only'? Will they be accessable to non AR members on Facebook?

CHARLENE - Since Members Only posts don't appear on your RSS feed, they would not end up on Facebook. Hope that helps!

Thanks for your quick reply Jason, I really appreciate it. You definitely helped. I'm going to give it a try on Facebook!

JAN

Thanks more and more great info..I need to prioritize which I should do first!!!

Thanks,

Cindy

JAN

Thanks! I'm planning on working on my Facebook this year... My 2009 goal and this will be on my list to do!

Jason,

Just saw this post and it worked great! Thanks

Hi Jason,

Some of my readings about social media such as Twitter and Facebook say that blogs for business prospecting do not belong on Twitter and Facebook. They should be for socializing only. I'm struggling now with whether I should put my "real estate face" on Facebook in a bigger way. What do you think?

Carol

PS Another way to send blogs to these social media is via Friend Feed.

THANK YOU! I appreciate that you shared what you know how to do so easily.

Hi Jason, I knew that some smart 'Rainer could share how to accomplish this. It's you!

The Horse Girl ~ Marian

CAROL - Frankly, I get tired of advice like that from social media "experts". I do what works for me, and I am unconcerned with their opinions. So far, this has been the best course of action. If you aren't comfortable using the sites in that way, don't do it! I would suggest that if you are not actively on Twitter interacting with others, you probably are wasting effort by feeding posts from AR or any blog to that platform, since they will be largely ignored unless people already know you.

Jason, good post thanks and I have already implemented your advice. Now to subscribe.

Great tip! Thanks Jason. I may just give it a whirl.

Jason,

This is so cool...I knew how to do it for AR, but not for Facebook.
Thanks oodles and hope you had a blast in Houston.

Talk to you later,

TD

thanks much! I just did that ....cool!

The Simplaris Blogcast seems to have stopped working. Mine hasn't updated in a while, and it's set to update automatically.

I have the feed coming from my outside blog - I'm wondering if with all the changes here on AR, perhaps the RSS feed from the outside blogs is gone??

Jason, Thanks for the tip. I just started on facebook and linking my AR blog was at the top of my to do list. You saved me a whole lot of time. Again much appreciated!

Thank You JC, you are the MAN!

DON - I never actually tried feeding it from the outside blog, so I'm not sure. I use the feed straight from AR, and mine is still working, it seems.

JAN

Thank you so much for this amazing information. I am going to try it .

Thank you from the bottom of my technically challenged heart!

Thank you so much for this information. Ask and you shall receive.

Hi Jason - I had read this post earlier, and have now come back to do just what you've taken the time to show us how to do to, and to bookmark it so I can find it MUCH easier the next time I need to read this again.

Thanks for making these steps seem easy enough to actually do.
Ann

JAN

Hey Jason, Set it up to capture my AR rss feed? How do I capture the rss feed?

MARIAN - Your RSS feed is:

http://activerain.com/blogs/annarborlistings/rss

I hope that helps!

JAN

Hey Crouchman, Thanks, you're the best. I'm figuring these things out one at a time...

JAN

Thanks for the nice tutorial. I'm trying to figure out exactly how this works and how much of a committment that I need to make.

JAN

Jason - Been using this for a while now and it's great. Many of my clients have found me on FB and are now connected to me via FB also. It's all good! Bob H

JAN

LOL Jason - better late than never - just did this - thanks for the how too & have a great weekend!

Gracie

FEB

What I'm looking for, Jason, is how to set up a feedburner acct for my AR blog - it keeps giving me reasons it can't accept it. Any thoughts on that?

FEB

Thanks again! This was a very great tip that will save me tons of re-write of my blogs.

Margaret - I know that Don Rogers had a similar problem when he tried to set it up. Have you tried using the outside blog RSS feed?

FEB

Jason: I just sent this same question to AR FAQ....but my Twitter feed of my AR blogs is not working anymore? Any ideas? Is this because I now have an Active (Outside) Blog? I know i have everything correct on my setting page.

Thank you so much Jason. For someone that is technologically challenged, your posts have been and will continue to be very valuable to me.

Thank you so much...I didn't know how to do it on facebook and this was very helpful! Wendy

Great post. Thanks for making it easy for us to follow along!

Christine - I would recommend doing it by hand to Twitter, unless you are really active there. I don't know why it wouldn't be working, however. Wish I could help -

Suzanne - Thanks - that is great to hear!

Wendy - Cool! I'm happy that I could help.

Rebecca - I try! Glad it was helpful for you.

Wow, Jason, you've the whole assembly following you. You are my hero. I'm at the point of which comes first, the blog, the badges, the tags and how can I repurpose my blogs. If I'm not careful I end up on the computer all day in lieu of marketing.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Jason you are the man! I just set up my facebook and it works perfectly! Thanks for sharing.

Jason, thanks for this great tutorial. I added the app to FB. Do you know if it is possible to blogcast more than 1 blog on FB? Thanks! You are THE BEST at giving of yourself to help others learn something new.

Jason,

I have a business page on Facebook. Do you know if it is possible to use this app to publish to my business page rather than my personal page?

Thanks for the great info,

Bobbi - Frankly, I am on the computer much of the day which IS marketing. Anyone who considers me to be their hero is a friend. :)

Greg - Awesome! Happy to hear it -

Jan - I think it has to be possible to do that. Alternatively, you could use the "Notes" function on FB to import the second blog.

Jonathan - That is a good question - I'm not sure. I may experiment with that tonight.

Thanks for the tip! Easy as pie...now let's see how much traffic this can actually generate for me....

Thanks Jason I will be trying it out soon.

Thanks for the tip Jason! ;)

Great Post Jason, Thanks for the help. Do you know if we can set this up in Linked In?

Of course, any help is greatly appreciated!!

Thank you Jason, for the information I'm going to give it a try and will sign up for Twitter. I did not know about this one. Great post, clear, visual

FEB

Jason....Now THIS is the kind of post that is SO deserving of being featured! Thank you so much for your time and effort putting this one together. I am now off to my Facebook and Twitter accounts to make this happen.

You deserve all the extras blogger subscriptions you can get.

Again, many thanks!

I knew about twitter, but Thanks for sharing the Facebook information. One can never get too much exposure in real estate.

For all of you reading this page, please also look at Shareaholic for Firefox, which allows you to post or email to many site!

Thanks Jason!

Thanks, Jason, this was on my list of stuff to do, and you helped me blaze through it in no time! Great post...Lisa

Vey useful info - thank you, Jason.

Now, this is what I call active community contributing at its best. You bring networking to a new level. Hope I can return the favor one day! Thank you, Jason!

Jason you rock and this is absolutely awesome that we can do this!!!!! Do you know if it works for google blogspot?

This is a very good post for the step by step on how to do this... I have seen a few other similar posts, but this one is for sure the most clear.

Thanks Jason!

Amy Boxer - Welcome Home Furniture Rental & Staging

Love this tool, I've had two referrals so far from Facebook.

FEB

Great post. I just got it set up. Your the man!

MAR

Hi, Eric. This is quite possibly the best blog ever! I'm a little confused though. I followed the steps, and it said you can only post 3 blogcasts at a time. How does Facebook manage this? Does one have to go in and update on occassion? Thanks!

MAR

I tried to hook up my blog to my facebook page accroding to your directions. I triple-checked the steps and it all looks right to me. However, my facebook page has said for 2 weeks that I haven't blogged yet. For some reason it is not synching with my activerain page. Any suggestions?

Suzette - I could walk you through an alternative solution if you like, using the "Notes" application.

MAR

Thanks I got it to work. Good luck with the baby

MAR

I think I figured most of this out from another post yesterday but am saving this in case I didn't get all the pieces. Thank you.

Thanks, I'm new at facebook and blogging so I really need help in learning how to do all this. I'm glad you are willing to share!

Very helpful post. Welcome home if you stayed long enough to pick up messages. I really like the assistance.

Facebook, Twitter? We don't need no Facebook and Twitter... But if I ever do YOU DA MAN!!

MAR

Thanks Jason. I'm all connected. Hope Spring brings you increased business!

Got it -- thanks!!

Thanks for the information. I just have to take the time to set it up.

Thanks for making it so easy!!!

You are on my Book Mark to do list. These types of articles are very helpful.

MAR

This is great! Thanks for making something that appears very difficult really be so easy!

MAR

Thanks! It seems somethings changed a bit when Facebook came out with their newest version but I am going to double check that all is in place right for me! Great post!

MAR

Thank you so much! I just started utilizing Facebook and was wondering how that was done!

MAR

Thank you for the helpful info!

APR

GOOD MORNING JASON! Thanks to Anne Marie Malfi featured post today - and because I am so slooooowwwww at keeping up -- I finally got around to doing this! And needed to stop by and say thank you! Hope all is going well with the new baby! -- Gabrielle

APR