WordPress.com recently introduced a feature called “Publicize”, which allows users to send their blog posts to Twitter and Yahoo as status messages. If you are a WordPress.com user, here are some instructions, on how you can send out your posts as twitter and Yahoo updates.

Enabling Twitter & Yahoo Updates in WordPress

Step 1: Login to your WordPress.com account and click on the “My Blogs” link in the sidebar.

Step 2: In the blog listing on the right hand side, select Twitter under the Publicize column. You will be shown a message to “Authorize Twitter”, click on it and follow the steps to authorize your twitter account.

To authorize your Yahoo account, select Yahoo and follow the steps to authorize your Yahoo account.

Once you have authorized both your accounts, your posts will automatically be sent to twitter and Yahoo.

Customizing Tweet/Update Messages

WordPress.com will create a automatic status update message based on your post. However, you can edit the message and customize it. While creating a new post you will see a new Publicize message in the sidebar.

To customize your publicize message, click on the edit link. You can now customize the message that will be sent out to Yahoo and Twitter.

Disabling WordPress.com Posts From Being Sent out as Updates

There are certain times, when you may not want to send out your posts as updates. To do that, just click on the edit link in the sidebar for Publicize, and deselect the services you do not want to send out an update to.

Many WordPress users may argue that there are several plugins that already do this. However, WordPress.com users cannot install plugins, so the Publicize feature is definitely a very good thing for automatically sending out posts as updates.