How To Update Your Facebook Fanpage Status Automatically Using RSS Graffiti

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Updating your Facebook fan page is a great way of promoting new blog posts. If you post often or have multiple blog authors this can get to be a cumbersome and repetitive task. In the past, I used Twitterfeed to update my social networks. Due to a api error this has proven to be sporadically effective. So in the interest of automating status updates once again I have found RSS Graffiti to be a great fit.

Configuring Your Facebook Page

This is a simple process and from soup to nuts will only take you about 5 minutes depending on how many pages you want to configure. So let’s get started.

1. Visit the RSS Graffiti page here. Click on, “Go to application”.
2. Select your fan page once you arrive on the application page.

3. Click on, “Click here to add RSS Graffiti to this Fan Page”.
4. Once added you’ll have to allow for publishing permissions to post to your fan page.

5. Add your blog rss feed. You’ll also be asked to name said feed and a link back to your website.
6. Click, “Preview”, to generate a sample of what your status update will look like.
7. Choose your post style.

What Are Post Styles?

This setting determines the type of post that will be created. Different styles have different configuration options.

Standard
Recommended for most feeds. Publishes a text excerpt and any available media (image, audio or video).

Compact
Intended to publish short stories from microblogs like Twitter without changing your Facebook status.

Status Updates
Similar to “Compact” style, but instead of just writing on your wall it will also update your Facebook status.

Use RSS Graffiti To Send Twitter Updates To Your Fan Page

To configure your Twitter account you’ll have to visit, “Applications Settings”, on the left hand side of the fan page configuration page. Do this while logged into your Twitter account for automatic association and allow access for the Rss Graffiti application through your Twitter account.

In order to retrieve tweets from tweeter, RSSGraffiti needs you to connect your twitter account(s) (…and of course to provide a twitter feed).

This is required because twitter has a limitation on the number of requests allowed per user. Thus it is impossible for RSSGraffiti to fetch the feeds of all its users as this limit is just not adequate. Furthermore, using your twitter account, you can use any restricted twitter RSS Feeds that only your account has access to. You need to add at least one twitter account at your User account settings to be able to add your twitter feed in any of your walls. Connecting your account is done using twitter oAuth.

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About Me: Nate Balcom is a web designer and social media guru with over 11 years of experience in the web industry. He specializes in web design and development, SEO and social networking. You can follow him on Twitter here.