How To Use HootSuite & Ping.FM to Publish Your WordPress Blog To All Your Social Media Sites
Posted on 22. Dec, 2009 by Brian Wong in Social Media
Let Me Set The Scene…
I love blogging. But, I don’t want to spend time updating all my social media sites every time I write on my blog. I just want to focus on my blog and create awesome content. But what’s the point of great content if people don’t find my blog? Argh! The dilemma. What can I do?
Enter HootSuite and Ping.FM to the Rescue.
Ping.FM allows you to notify up to 42 social media sites about your status updates, micro blog updates or blog posts. See my previous post about how to use Ping.FM like a social media ninja!
Now, with Hootsuite integration, you can have more control over your content updates AND you can track click statistics with Hootsuite’s built in analytics.
Setting It All Up
First, log into your Ping.FM account. Then go to www.Ping.FM/key and get your Ping.FM API Key.
Now, log in to your Hootsuite account. Add a new network and select Ping.FM. Enter your Ping.FM username and API key as below:

Your Hootsuite is now linked to all the social media sites you’ve setup in Ping.FM.
Tip: I purposely do not add Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Facebook Pages in Ping.FM because I want to update these main sites directly from Hootsuite and/or Seesmic Desktop. I use both these applications interchangeably.
Connect Your Blog’s RSS Feed
Next, you want Hootsuite to send your blog posts to Ping.FM automatically every time you post. To do this, click on the RSS/Atom tab in Hootsuite.
Just add your blog’s RSS feed and select the services you want it to automatically post to. In this case, make sure you include Ping.FM.

Using Hootsuite and Ping.FM
Now you can post to Ping.FM by typing in a Tweet into Hootsuite and selecting Ping.FM or just create a blog post and let the RSS feed from your blog post update all your social networks.
Either way, this is a very convenient and very powerful way of getting your content syndicated once you’ve set it all up.
But the big question is, does it work the way its deigned to work? I’ve searched high and low and nobody seems to have actually put up actual results.
So I decided to put it to the test on my social media sites. Here are the results:
Social Media Sites Updated via Hootsuite and Ping.FM
Brian Wong on Bebo:
YES!


Brian Wong on BrightKite:
YES!

Brian Wong on Diigo:
YES!

Brian Wong on Facebook Pages:
YES! But this is a direct posting from HootSuite and not part of Ping.FMs update.

Brian Wong on Friendster:
YES!

Brian Wong on FriendFeed:
YES! But this not from Ping.FM. It is updated indirectly as FriendFeed picks up my feeds from Twitter and from my blog directly. There is a delay of an hour or so for the feed to get updated.

Brian Wong on HI5:
YES!


Brian Wong on Jaiku:
NO!
After several tests, I found that Ping.FM was not updating my Jaiku account for all the type of status updates. I’m still not sure why.


Brian Wong on LiveJournal:
YES! (But posts show up with no subjects)

Brian Wong on Multiply:
YES! (all posts show up under “Notes”)

Brian Wong on MySpace:
YES!

Brian Wong on MyYearBook:
YES! But I am thinking of removing myself from this network. Just like Tagged, I get a lot of unsavory requests and the site looks like its for horny teenagers. I basically just turn off all email communications in my settings.


Brian Wong on Plaxo Pulse:
YES! But updated via a direct connection between Plaxo and Twitter

Brian Wong on Plurk:
YES!




Brian Wong on StreetMavens.com:
YES!

Brian Wong on Tagged:
NO! (I suspect this site is a cest pool for perverts and adult services. Since signing up, I get a lot of unsavory requests. Am going to leave this account dormant or remove myself)


Brian Wong on Twitter:
YES! This is a direct update from Hootsuite and not from Ping.FM

Brian Wong on TypePad:
YES!

Brian Wong on Utterli:
YES!

Brian Wong on VOX:
YES!

Brian Wong on Xanga:
YES! Updates appear under the “Pulse” section.

Brian Wong on Yahoo Meme:
YES!

Brian Wong on Yahoo Profiles:
YES!


Brian Wong on YouAre.com:
YES!

Conclusion
As you can see from my little experiment, the success rate of posting to multiple social media sites at once is pretty impressive. I definitely think that Ping.FM and Hootsuite makes a very powerful combination. I especially like the added advantage of being able to view the results of each post via the analytics provided by Hootsuite. So go ahead and register for Hootsuite and Ping.fm
Want more test results? Subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
Please ReTweet this post. I’ve made it easy with a one click-button below. The Tweet and URL links will all be inserted for you. Your followers will appreciate your willingness to share. :)
Technorati Tags: hootsuite, ping.fm, social media sites












60 Comments
Get Paid Off Your Phone Bill
22. Dec, 2009
HootSuite recently released their iPhone version. This tutorial should come in handy. Thanks Brian.
Amanda
24. Dec, 2009
This is a great post Brian. I am just getting my blog under way and this is going to come in handy.
Cheers
Gérer tous ses réseaux sociaux d’un clic (Thunderbird & Hootsuite) | Rémi Thibert
11. Jan, 2010
[...] je suis tombé sur cet article de Brian Wong (How To Use HootSuite & Ping.FM to Publish Your WordPress Blog To All Your Social Media Sites) qui explique qu’il est possible (dans une certaine mesure) d’utiliser Identi.ca depuis [...]
Sarah
14. Jan, 2010
Wong knows his ping and hoot
Phil Powdrill
31. Jan, 2010
Brian
Thanks for taking the time and effort to create this step-by-step guide.
Had to create a post sending my own readers over to see this article –
http://www.onlinebusinesscoach-phil.com/i-write…
Thanks again
Phil
Brian Wong
31. Jan, 2010
Your welcome. Glad you find it useful. :)
Stephanie
16. Apr, 2010
Why PING.fm and not Friendfeed?
Brian Wong
16. Apr, 2010
There are many ways to setup a syndication system. For me, Ping.FM integrates with Hootsuite and can update my Friendfeed account as well. I use Hootsuite daily to check my accounts so that’s why I use that as the source of the content.
Anthony
28. May, 2010
Hi Brian this is absolutely one of the best posts I have ever read when it comes to social bookmarking. Also you have made it so easy to follow that my 2 year daughter could do it. I have set up my site with Hootsuite and Pingfm and it really does work. My site name is http://yourautoinsurancequotes.com so if interested check it out. Hey I tried to do the same thing with Onlywire but it did not work for me. Thanks for the great post and I will be checking back soon for more posts. Thanks alot Brian.
Marc
17. Jun, 2010
Brian stated “I purposely do not add Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Facebook Pages in Ping.FM because I want to update these main sites directly from Hootsuite and/or Seesmic Desktop.”
Why do you choose to do this?
Is it because you don’t want certain tweets to go to Facebook
and generate unwanted replies?
Have you written an entry about your social media workflow yet?
Thanks
Brian Wong
17. Jun, 2010
I classify Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as “tier-1″ social networks so I don’t want to have automated posts appearing there. Secondly I add a lot of status updates manually so I want to be in full control of my posts to the tier-1 sites.
Great idea about outlining my social media workflow. I will make a post on that.
Marc
25. Jun, 2010
@Brian Wong – Thanks for the reply!
HootSuite’s website got an update last night:
HTML 5-based, 3 Themes to choose from (if you like TweetDeck’s look, you’ll love the new ‘Magnum’ theme), Default retweet is now like Twitter’s style of Retweet, Site Analytics now have Google Analytics ‘baked in,’ Enhanced Facebook and more. Simply login to your HootSuite Account and you will be presented with a new features tour window.
Still need the old style HootSuite ReTweets or to schedule ReTweets?
Click the Owl-> Settings-> Preferences-> Uncheck “Use Twitter Web retweets”
WISH LIST –
It would be nice if HootSuite added the ability to measure, count and display RETWEETS from your links within My Tweets, Retweeted.
OW.LY links still cannot be tracked when used with Facebook yet.
Earlier they had removed the troublesome iFrame problem associated with the OW.LY links entirely, but still need to expand their click-thru tracking capabilities (namely Facebook) if they want to keep folks from cut/pasting bit.ly-generated links.
Looking forward to learning more about your workflow!
How To Automate Your Blog Work Flow And Increase Your Search Engine Ranking | Blogging
13. Jul, 2010
[...] How To Use HootSuite & Ping.FM to Publish Your WordPress Blog To All Your Social Media Sites [...]
Paul Schlegel
13. Aug, 2010
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I have two very popular blogs and for some reason could not wrap my head around how to syndicate them through ping.fm – I was unaware that hootsuite could feed into ping.fm!
Sachin
20. Aug, 2010
Thanks nice post…
It saves my a lot times…
thx
Tina
21. Aug, 2010
why do you use both hootsuite and ping? i’m still trying to get my brain wrapped around this…is there a reason for using both and not one or the other?
also, it seems you are saying that your content is posted directly at hootsuite, correct? is there a way to have content posted on a wordpress blog and have THAT feed to ping or hootsuite…i just am thinking that i prefer to post the actual content on my blog itself, and then notify people via facebook, twitter, etc, that a post has been made so they go back to my site to read it. is this not an efficient way of doing it?
i’m just learning here, so i’m trying to figure out how best to do this. its very confusing with all the options! :)
Brian Wong
21. Aug, 2010
Hi Tina, read this post and look at the diagram and I think it will become clearer: http://brianwong.com/blog/how-to-automate-your-blog-workflow-and-increase-your-search-engine-ranking/
TIna
23. Aug, 2010
thank you brian, that is helpful! i really appreciate you spelling all this out to make it clearer to newbies like me.
there is one thing i wonder that isn’t mentioned there, and i’m not sure if you’ve mentioned it elsewhere in your site…
i find it soooo easy to post to facebook and twitter via all the links so many people provide on their web articles and such these days…easier, i think, than creating a blog post…although i plan to do a lot of blog posts, of course, as well…but for quick links to articles or retweets…is there a way to have those feed back to my wordpress (self hosted) site?
maybe i missed it somewhere…but it just seems like the reverse could also be set up to send the info back to my blog if i tweet or post to facebook…is the way to do that just via the sidebar widgets that i can install to show the twitter and facebook feeds? or is there a way to have twitter/facebook post an actual blog post to my blog?
thanks again, you are actually really helping me sort through the confusion of all this info that is so very overwhelming! i set up my hootsuite account last night and so far i’m LOVING IT! having everything in one place instead of having to log off and on all the time is REALLY handy!
Joe
26. Aug, 2010
This post was exactly what I was looking for. I have 2 blogs plus multiple client blogs and I was using the shareaholic plugin to send my posts to ping.fm since I could not find a plugin to reliably send my posts to ping.fm. The shareaholic process was working but it required too many steps and time that was adding up when working with multiple blogs and posts. Thanks for taking the time to write this thorough post.
Joe
01. Sep, 2010
I think I spoke to soon. I have been trying to set this up and I followed the steps exactly as described. Hootsuite says “Feeding” for the status of my RSS feed, I’ve added my ping.fm account as described pasting my ping.fm key and saving my account but hootsuite will not post my new posts (or any posts) to ping.fm.
Is anyone else having a similar problem or am I doing something wrong?
If I could get this to work, it would make life so much easier…
Jose Gonzalez
12. Sep, 2010
Hi Brian,
Thanks for this post (the time, the effort and sharing). It’s exactly the fix I needed.
btw: I just joined your list – I look forward to reading what you have to say!
Regards
Jose
bas relief painting
17. Sep, 2010
Great info… now that onlywire has gone haywire (ridiculous prices) I was looking for a nice social poster for my autoblogs. This might work just great.
thanks
brent lee
26. Sep, 2010
I need to figure out how to update my self-hosted wordpress blog automatically. using hootsuite to update all my social media accounts but it won’t work with self-hosted wordpress blogs. is there a work-around or another service i could use?
Brian Wong
27. Sep, 2010
There are many plugins to allow your WP to create automated posts based on an RSS feed. So you could feed your twitter feed into your WP blog for example. If that’s not what you are after, you could do a Google search on “auto blog”. I’m sure there are many solutions out there.
Bonjovicrzy ( Bev)
02. Oct, 2010
Hey Brian
I am reading you blog on how to set up a blog with Ping,fm and I will be coming here first after install the blog I am no coder I work in graphics and pictures mostly on the net and I want to apologize if this is long or I sound silly
this is my first time blogging on my very own and setting a blog up I am confused a little bit some one told me about Ping.fm since I am all over the web and thanks for the tip on HootSuite. & I signed up for a free account at Ping.fm do I need the API key ? it says over at Ping./fm site it was for developers and the link you gave in the article has no service
what I am little confused is with Ping.fm and WordPress I have a blog 3.01 and there is different versions of Ping.fm and all the downloads is not current/ recent and for older WordPressin the 2 series not 3 I am not sure which one to install for the first time .. and do I need the rest of the different ping.fm s to work with each others also ?I see Custom URL & WPWord2Ping.fm
I do need something… that does allot things withthe tools /plugins & wordpress for pictures videos and music and etc plus it is hard to find something that works with facebook fanpages and band pages instead of personal facebook pages I have 1-3 bands I will be blogging about so I need something that works with different accounts I know I will need the HootSuite for Twiiter
so any help recommendations you can give would be appreciated ..thank you so much .. Bev
Danijel Pendjer - Legalizacija Objekata
07. Oct, 2010
Hi Brian,
I was looking for a solution how to make automated link building for index driver sites for company that I work for. I try Only Wire just as Anthony, and I didn’t make any results.
I just set up this system as you suggest us. It looks promising.
If this really works our index driver sites will boost SEO results. We are making great SEO results with system that we already use, and this can be the last part of the puzzle.
Now I just need to wait new post to be automatically publish via UAW plugin for WP.
Thanks for this great idea!
Danijel
Danijel Pendjer - Legalizacija Objekata
07. Oct, 2010
And this is realy working :)
I just saw results.
One more time,
Thanks Brian!
Brian Wong
07. Oct, 2010
Always happy to share and help :)
Danijel Penjer
10. Oct, 2010
When you use hotsuit Ht.ly shot link service doesn’t impact your site’s SEO, so use Ow.ly.
http://blog.hootsuite.com/htly-owly/
mtarkhov
30. Oct, 2010
Hi Brian, i just wanted to say thanks for this amazing post, i’ve been looking for posting from my WP to FB for few days till i found your old post with #fb method.
Thanks again!
Azim
25. Nov, 2010
Hi Brian,
Thanks for such an informational post. I would like to know the list of supporting site for Hootsuite.Because when I go to their website, they don’t list down their supporting website.
Regards
Azim
Ringo
30. Dec, 2010
Hi,
I would like to know if you prefer one ping.fm account for each niche, or all niche in one ping.fm account?
By the way, your post save me tons of time
Thanks
Ringo
Brian Wong
30. Dec, 2010
You can register for free to see. So far, they only support Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Ping.FM and RSS feeds. But they started charging for having multiple accounts.
Brian Wong
30. Dec, 2010
In theory, it would be better to setup one account per niche but alas I am too lazy to do it so I have 3 niches under the account currently. :)
Hannah Tighe
19. Jan, 2011
Hi Brian,
This post is exactly what I needed! I have been looking at Ping.Fm, sure that there was a way to publish my blog, but I couldn’t figure it out! Thank you so much !
Top 10 @Hootsuite #HOWTOs | News from the Farmers
25. Jan, 2011
[...] How To Use HootSuite & Ping.FM to Publish Your WordPress Blog To All Your Social Media Sites [...]
Bruce Campbell
15. Feb, 2011
Great tutorial and very clear. I had one question. Why do you update Facebook and Twitter directly? What did you base your choice on.
Brian Wong
15. Feb, 2011
Cos I actually reply and interact with FB and Twitter. For the other sites it’s just one way push from my blog.
mae
25. Feb, 2011
I found this very interesting. I am on wordpress would love a way to just update from one place or two.
2012ElectionNews.org
26. Feb, 2011
Just what we needed. Thank you Brian.
Omer Greenwald
06. Mar, 2011
Hi Brian,
Is it possible to update facebook status for a customized list of friends with these tools? If not, maybe you know of another social media manager that has this feature?
pnoy
01. Apr, 2011
someone i followed on facebook use ping.fm and i found it spamming because his one same post keep showing many times on my facebook wall. so, i “unlike” the facebook page.
what can you say? is it helping one’s blog if that’s the case?
Brian Wong
01. Apr, 2011
You definitely do not want to post too often or have duplicate posts on your FB page. Ping.FM is not meant to help you spam your FB page but rather to automate the syndication of your post. I used solely to post to other social media sites and to automate the syndication of my blog posts. For FB messages and Twitter, I often post directly.
Ed
16. Apr, 2011
Thanks Brian for sharing these very useful and time saving tips. It was exactly what I was looking for.
I would never have thought or the Hootsuite/ Ping FM connection and as I was concerned about FB and Twitter posts this is great.
Thanks again,
Ed
Brian Wong
16. Apr, 2011
Your welcome. Happy to share what works for me. :)
Marty Dickinson
18. Apr, 2011
Hi Brian and congrats on a very detailed post on a topic I get asked about a few times a month. I’ve posted a link to this on my web marketing book page on facebook. So, look for more questions and discussion here and keep it rollin’ my friend!
Marty Dickinson
20. Apr, 2011
In follow up to my post, I started digging into ping.fm and hootsuite some more….and also a audio/video syndication system called PixelPipe.com. My question is this:
Some of the site in your example like koornk, diigo, posterous, presently, shoutem, street mavens, utterli, vox do not seem to be included in ping or hootsuite. So, is there another tool you use to auto-update these?
Thanks in advance.
Gradle
23. Jun, 2011
Great psot Brina, how do you you get your posterous.com account linked in Ping.fm? Thanks
Gradle
Brian Wong
23. Jun, 2011
It used to be an option in Ping.FM’s list of sites. But I just checked and they seem to have removed it.
Gradle
25. Jun, 2011
Hi Brian, thanks for the reply, it is a shame that Ping.fm seems doesn’t have Posterous. However what they have left is great so thanks for sharing this technique, all free too. Gradle
Jerry Johnson
20. Aug, 2011
Hi Brian:
Thanks for the advice on using hootSuite and pPing.fm.
I already have an account with Ping.fm, but I had never heard about HootDuite.
It looks like a great way to maximize your Ping account and boost your overall social marketing strategies.
Thanks so much !
Jerry
Dan's Blog about stuff and things. » Archive » Social Networking made easy, and widespread!
28. Sep, 2011
[...] Here’s a link to the article: http://brianwong.com/blog/howto-hootsuite-pingfm-wordpress-socialmedia/ [...]
Internet Business Revolution
23. Nov, 2011
I thought Google was also looking at timestamp of postings to detect spamming. But then again Google should not be able to punish you for this as a competitor would then also be able to do this and hurt your rankings. Any ideas on this matter?
Cheers,
Wouter @ Internet Business Revolution
Brian Wong
23. Nov, 2011
This is content syndication and not spamming. So either you get ranking benefits or no benefits at all. But you won’t get penalized. That’s for sure. In my experience, I’ve seen the syndicated posts gets picked up in Google so I find it works fine — especially since its all automated.
Ash Chuan
05. Dec, 2011
This post has been very useful. I have just tested HootSuite and setup my RSS feed to post to my Facebook page. Thanks for sharing.
Mark
09. Dec, 2011
A lot of great info here. Interested to see what you have to say about social media work flow. Thanks.
Mike
15. Jan, 2012
Thanks for the info, I have now got a much better understanding about the process of linking hootsuite & ping.fm to set up my rss feeds correctly.
SEO Future
08. Feb, 2012
Great article Brian.
Do you have maybe solution for automated posts to social bookmarking websites such as reddit, stumble upon, digg, …
I hear about socialposter and socialmarker. I think that onlywire have some of them. What do you think about that and about these websites.
Thanks!
luqman
16. Feb, 2012
I tried this method, thanks
it works effectively to viral marketing on social media
mukul
20. Feb, 2012
great amazing tutorial this the first time i am reading your post and its been a great worthy one for me thanks for such a nice tutorial now i can expand my blogs data share on net thanx brian
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