(Newswire.net — October 8, 2013) Salt Lake City, UT — At Newswire, we have been doing some testing to find the easiest way to expand your social sharing reach. There are ways to share manually, or even partially automate your sharing without cost through a combo of free accounts at www.ifttt.com and www.hootsuite.com. If you follow the formula below you will spend $74 to set-up a killer network up and only run it for a year.
The first thing to decide is if you want to do just one social network for yourself, or a separate network for each business that you write about. That largely depends on you, and how you use your Newswire account. But if you are frequently (monthly or more, or high value client) writing on behalf of businesses that have their own social networks – even if it is just a Facebook and Google+ page — you might want to do networks for each of these regular clients. For now let’s just assume that you don’t mind sharing all of your writing across one social network. If you change your mind, you can always make additional networks by just repeating these instructions.
Step 1. Make a new Gmail account.
No need to use an alias or to try to conceal your identity in any way. You will need to give access to this account to a virtual assistant, so if decide to skip this step and use an existing Gmail account, make sure it is one that has no sensitive information.
To make a new Gmail account follow this link: https://accounts.google.com/SignUp. If you are logged in to a different Google account, log out before proceeding. Make it an easy name to remember. I used syndication.myname@gmail.com. You may wish to have mail from your new account forwarded to your main Gmail account after all steps are completed.
Step 2. Make OnlyWire Account. Start your www.onlywire.com account by clicking on the forgoing link (I have set it to open in a new window so you can continue to follow these instructions). If you like, you can choose the Free, 7 day plan. But I would recommend that you jump right in and go for the “ProPlan”. That plan is $49/year and includes everything you will need.
Once you have completed the sign-up process, go to https://www.onlywire.com/secure/my/networks and enter the Facebook and Google+ accounts that you want to link to your Newswire stories. If you are publishing on your own behalf, you can use your own personal accounts. If you are publishing on behalf of a business, you will need their usernames and login passwords before proceeding. In Step 4 we will tell you how to use a cheap virtual assistant to create 45 more social networks to post your stories to, but if you have established Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, or Twitter accounts that you want to post your stories to, this is the place to enter those existing accounts. You must enter at least one account before proceeding to Step 3.
Step 3. Find Newswire RSS Feed.
If you haven’t yet used the cool new RSS features of Newswire, this is you chance to let your mind wander into the infinite possibilities that having an individualized RSS Feed brings. Login to your Newswire account, and go to http://www.newswire.net/rssfeeds/channels (the link is in the footer of every page). This is where you will have to start making some decisions about what you want to link to you OnlyWire account. You have at least two good options: a) you can find the xml link to your Writer Profile Page by clicking the (+) and searching and clicking on your user name, or b) if you wish to confine your feed to the articles and updates from only a particular company, you can find the feed for an individual Company Profile Page by following the same instructions after that heading. Either way, copy the XML Feed code, and save for the next step.
Step 4. Feed you news through OnlyWire.
Under the “settings” menu on OnlyWire https://www.onlywire.com/secure/my/feeds/ add the xml feed URL that you copied in step 3 above. You can add multiple feeds from up to 2 other original sources if you like by repeating steps 3 and 4. Make sure you validate your feed by following the link of the same name on this OnlyWire page.
Step 5. Hire a Virtual Assistant.
50 different networks can be accessed from OnlyWire. Enter the major networks that you already have then hire a VA to do the rest. I found 3 gigs on Fiverr and used to set my own account:
http://fiverr.com/needtrafficnow/create-all-of-pixelpipe-or-all-onlywire-or-all-of-pingfm-links
http://fiverr.com/dbestseo/do-full-set-of-onlywire-account-creation
http://fiverr.com/seo5rr/complete-onlywire-setup-in-2-days
Each of these guys price a bit differently, but on gig I bought, I paid for $20 in extras (connection of newly created accounts to OnlyWire, inclusion of Profile Pic, NAP, and Web address.) All seem to be about the same price, even if they get there different ways. But $25 for the creation of 45 fully filled out social profiles makes this gig a no brainer for me.
You will need to provide the login info to both the Gmail and OnlyWire accounts you just created.
Well, there you have it. The Fiverr gig will take a few days to kick in, but from there on out, you will automatically have each of your news articles posted to 50 or so social networks every time you publish. The next thing to do is to make sure each of your networks have followers. Look for a follow-on article soon…