{ Nichole Williams }

How to get your WordPress RSS feed to work with HootSuite

28 Oct 2011 in WordPress

After having a few issues last week getting HootSuite to update various social media networks via a WordPress RSS feed, I thought I’d share the experience in case anyone else has ran into the same issue.

Firstly, check to see if your RSS feed is valid & set up correctly

The HootSuite support team state the following possible reasons for your RSS feed not working:

• The RSS feed is paused. You will need to click the green play button to unpause it.
• The RSS feed itself has not been updated since HootSuite sent the last article.
• Each RSS update refers to the same static webpage.
• The XML inside the feed is broken. To find out if this is the case, visit feedvalidator.org.
• The RSS feed has no date stamp. Feeds must be configured so that posted items report a date/time.
• The RSS feed has an article with a date stamp from the future.

This wasn’t particularly useful for me as the RSS feed was valid (according to feedvalidator) and had been set up correctly within HootSuite. On to plan B.

Check the WordPress Built-in Feeds

There are four possible URLs for each of your feeds. According to the WordPress Codex, any of these will work:

• http://example.com/?feed=rss
• http://example.com/?feed=rss2
• http://example.com/?feed=rdf
• http://example.com/?feed=atom

If you are using custom permalinks, you should be able to reach them through this usage:

• http://example.com/feed/
• http://example.com/feed/rss/
• http://example.com/feed/rss2/
• http://example.com/feed/rdf/
• http://example.com/feed/atom/

(For more information visit the WordPress Codex)

The Solution?

I had been using http://example.com/feed/, which in theory should have worked in HootSuite. In the end it was the following link that worked for me: http://example.com/atom