A reader asked me how to get Google Alerts to post to Twitter automatically so I thought maybe others would like to know as well.

Google Alerts allows you set-up a custom alert notification anytime Google picks up whatever you track – name, product, company, industry, etc. Initially you could only get email alerts but now these alerts can come via RSS.

So, getting your Google Alerts to post to Twitter is pretty easy now. To get them to post to Twitter you need a go between like Twitterfeed.

1) Set up your alert and choose the “feed” option for deliver to – right click the feed link and copy the URL for the feed, it will look something like this
http://www.google.com/alerts/feeds/17750747914485789296/10802436034005942849

2) Then go to your twitterfeed account and link that URL to your Twitter account and you should be done. The posts will go to Twitter at whatever frequency you set up in your Google Alerts – daily or as they happen. This works equally well if you want to post your blog feed, or any RSS for that matter, to Twitter.

I don’t know that this is a great, primary strategy for Twitter use, but it can be a way to mix in some tweets, but beware, whatever Google Alerts catches will post to your Twitter stream unfiltered.