I have noticed that some Redditors have their Twitter accounts connected so they show up in the profile. They also seem to be able to automatically repost Reddit content on Twitter too. How can I set that up for myself?
Reddit lacks the headlines and fanfare of Meta or Twitter, but it continues to be one of the best and most engaging social media sites on the entire Internet. The interface is simple, but it works well, and the ability of other users to vote content up or down to make it more prominent (or less visible) works surprisingly well in almost all of the groups. There are a few that seem to have retaliatory voting (as in “you disagree with me? A thousand downvotes for you!”) but mainly the highest voted comments and responses genuinely seem to be the best too.
But all of these social networks work within what we could call a social attention web; few people just use a single social network while ignoring all else. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Mastodon, the list goes on and on, including Twitter. Of all these, Reddit most easily interfaces with Twitter, allowing users to easily connect the two and cross-post, as you state. Best of all, it’s easy to set up…
STANDARD REDDIT GROUP POST
Log in to Reddit – I’ll use my desktop computer – and when you go to post a message, you’ll need to have a title, a message in the body, and a Subreddit selected. It’ll look similar to this:
Notice I’m prepping a post to the r/mazda subreddit in the above. More importantly, however, notice at the very bottom that there’s a checkbox for “Send me post reply notifications” and, below that, a link for “Connect accounts to share your post”. The latter is a way to jump directly to the settings area where you can add the link, but let’s go through the regular Settings area instead so you don’t have to start a post.
REDDIT SETTINGS: CONNECTED ACCOUNTS
From any page on Reddit, click on your profile image on the top right. A mini-window will appear with lots of options:
Choose “User Settings” from here. This brings up the Reddit settings area, which contains a lot of settings, preferences, and options!
You can look along the top to see just how many categories of settings are available to tweak and change. Surprisingly, none relate to connecting external social media accounts, however. That’s on this page (User settings > Account), but you’ll have to scroll down a bit…
More and more I’ve become very circumspect about hooking up external accounts, particularly if it’s to simplify login: If you have lots of sites relying on your Apple or Google account being safe, what happens if it’s hacked? My preference is to have separate login credentials – with completely different, random passwords on each – to avoid this central point of failure security problem. In other words, maybe don’t Connect to Apple or Connect to Google here.
REDDIT: CONNECT TO TWITTER
Instead, click on the “Connect to Twitter” button. Reddit will pass a request to Twitter and you’ll see the following from Twitter itself:
It lists a scary and alarming number of permissions, some of which I imagine are unnecessary (like deleting Tweets) but since there’s no way to specify some but not others, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. I’ve had things hooked up for years without a single glitch or hiccup. If you’re ready to give it a shot, click on “Authorize app“.
After a moment or two you’ll bounce back to Reddit and this window will flash along the bottom for a moment or two:
Done. Now, what have you wrought?
REDDIT WITH TWITTER CONNECTED ACCOUNT
The differences are actually fairly subtle. Look at the summary of your profile, for example, and it’ll now list that you’re connected on Twitter:
Yes, I’m @DaveTaylor on Twitter, as it shows.
More importantly, when you go to post something in Reddit, you’ll now have the chance to also share it on Twitter, as you seek:
That’s it. Not too difficult and definitely handy to keep weaving the elements of your social media world together.
Pro Tip: Just getting started with Reddit? Check out my Reddit help library for other helpful tutorial articles to get you up to speed while you’re visiting the site. And do feel free to follow me – u/ask-dave-taylor – on Reddit too. Thanks!
