Banner image for article on connecting Mastodon to other services with RSS

Post from Mastodon to Twitter: Using Mastodon to Tweet

Overview

Mastodon is an open-source and decentralized social network that feels similar to Twitter. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is a network of interconnected communities instead of a single site. There are more granular privacy controls and a 500-character limit. There are also no advertisements. While most social networks have deep integration with each other, Mastodon requires a little more effort from the user. In this quick guide, we’re going to use a simple web feed from Mastodon and a free web automation tool to publish content to other services (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Sheets, email, etc.).

For our purposes, you will need an account on an instance of Mastodon and a Zapier account. If you are new to Mastodon, I would recommend reading more about Mastodon since there are some key differences.

Note that you can also use IFTTT, Microsoft Flow, etc., if you prefer. Here is a good tutorial for IFTTT and Mastodon.


Connect Mastodon to Other Services

  1. Determine your username
    Your username is displayed next to your profile photo
  2. Construct your Atom feed url: https://instance/users/username.atom 
    or https://instance/@username.atom

    Examples:
    https://mastodon.social/users/nathangraham.atom
    https://mastodon.social/@nathangraham.atom

  3. Log in to Zapier and click Make a Zap
  4. Select RSS by Zapier as your Trigger
  5. Select New Item in Feed and click Continue
  6. Paste the Atom feed url from step #2
  7. Select Twitter (or another app where you would like to send Mastodon posts)
  8. Select Create Tweet
  9. Connect to your Twitter account
  10. Use the message field to add Mastodon content

    Use the message field to add Mastodon content 
  11. Click Create and Continue
  12. Turn your Zap On

That’s it.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *