February 2, 2012

How to Add LinkedIN Contacts to Twitter

NOTE: This is an updated version, from a prior Squidoo lens I authored. 

It seems many of my Twitter connections are always asking ‘How do I import my LinkedIN contacts to Twitter’. It is actually very possible and below I explain how….. (and I promise it will take under five minutes).

Part 1: Exporting your Connections
Part 2: Importing your Connections to Twitter

Note: You can actually use this method to upload contacts from any website that gives you a contact list in .CSV format, or even use your Microsoft Outlook address book!

And of course, my Twitter id is AlexBlom. Feel free to tweet me!

Part 1: Exporting the Contacts

Ok..so we have gotten this far. Good news, you are at the right page!! You are finally going to add your LinkedIN contacts on Twitter. I pretty promise this will take under five minutes, and you only need two things.

1) A LinkedIN Account (which I really hope you have, since you are reading this and all)
2) An e-mail account with Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail or MSN / Windows Live. Even if you do not use these normally, they are free (my preference is Gmail) and you do not need to use the account after this workaround.

Step 1:
Head to http://www.linkedin.com and login to your account.

Step 2:
Click on the ‘Connections’ button on your left hand menu.

Step 3:
Scroll down to the bottom of your LinkedIN contact list and click ‘Export Connections’.
Step 4:
Select ‘Microsoft Outlook (.CSV file) and choose to Export the file. Save it somewhere you will remember – it will be needed again soon!

Step 5:
Login to your free e-mail account and upload your connections to your contacts list via .CSV; the file we just downloaded from LinkedIN (now, read Part 2).

This may seem a little complicated, if I get time I will explain how to do Step 5 with all carriers. If you use Gmail, Simply login to Gmail, click ‘Contacts’, ‘Import’, ‘Browse’ – navigate to the file we just downloaded, and finally click ‘import’. Now, all of your LinkedIN connections are in your Gmail address book – rather useful if you ask me!

Part 2: Importing the Contacts to Twitter

Ok, we have setup the free e-mail account and imported all of our contacts. We are practically done, all we need to do is add our contacts to Twitter.

Step 1:
Login to Twitter.com

Step 2:
Click on ‘Find People’ and then ‘Find on Other Networks’.

Step 3:
Select the free e-mail account you setup, in this case Gmail.
Step 4:
Type in your e-mail account username and password (do not worry, it is safe) and press ‘Continue’.

Step 5:
Twitter will now discover which of your Contacts use Twitter and automatically follow them. Hopefully, they will follow you too!

I will remain as active as I can here to answer any questions you may have! Please ask them in a comment form so other people can see (as it may be a common question) and I will update this page and methods change. Unfortunately, as Twitter does not currently accept direct CSV uploads this is the best and easiest way to add contacts.