How to add LinkedIN Contacts to Twitter

by Alexander Blom

Note: This was originally posted as a Squidoo page (which was also authored by me). As it is ranking #1 on Google and generating near 100 unique hits a day I thought I would duplicate the content to my blog, where I can tweak it a little better (if I ever get time).


It seems many of my 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.

That is it! I hope this was helpful! I check this blog quite often, so if you get stuck you can either contact me or post a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I see it.

  • Gerben
    Alexander,

    I have 352 contacts in my Gmail addressbook, but when I import them to Twitter, I get the message "There was no one in your Gmail address book".

    Any suggestions?
  • Are you logging into the Gmail address book that you uploaded to?

    Are the contacts showing up IN your Gmail?
  • ikwilhet
    Alex, I got it working. I was logging into Gmail with my primary email address (non Gmail). When I logged in with my secondary email address (a Gmail address) it worked! Weird, because with both logins I can access the addresbook, but I can import it only with the second one.
  • That is odd! I am glad you have it working now though!
  • Geoff Marlow
    Hi Alex
    I have been registered with Twitter for seven months and still cannot import my contacts so cannot use the service. My contacts are in Google Contacts and there seems to be no way at all to get these into Twitter. One option I looked at was creating a Googlemail email account (that's what Gmail is called in UK) but if I do that this email account will take over my contacts ans I don;t wantthat to happen. How can I get my contacts from Google Contacts (not exactly the world's most obscure repository of contacts) in Twitter? No way am I typing in over 600 contacts just to see who I know on Twitter.
  • Hi Geoff.

    You can always try making a second Gmail account just for adding your LinkedIN contacts to. Sync this with Twitter and then just revert to using your other Gmail account afterwards.

    That's what I did so my main Gmail did not become too messy!
  • Hi Lori / all.

    Glad this was helpful!
  • Very helpful. Thanks for the tip.
  • Tony van Kessel
    You say "Twitter will now discover which of your Contacts use Twitter and automatically follow them". I just imported 2200 LinkedIn contacts but must manually click the"Follow" button for each one...
    Twitter recently changed the rules on bulk following/unfollowing, maybe they throttled the automatic following?
  • The reverse process also works, by the way. Export your Twitter connections and import to LinkedIn.
  • jonnybgood
    Thanks for the tip. Does anyone know how to import contacts to twitter from hotmail? The only options available via Twitter are Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo? Please DM me if you know the answer. Thanks!
  • Alex, Thank you for this!! You DID make it so easy! Tamora
    tamora_burk on Twitter
  • LinkedIn Connections page updated. It doesn't have the graphic to export connections. Instead, look for "Export connections" on the right side at the bottom of your connections page in Part 1, Step 3. Thanks for this, Alex.
  • Thanks Stephanie. Glad it was useful :)
  • This is an awesome idea and I wish I'd thought of it! Thanks for sharing!
  • Glad it was useful :)
  • Thanks for all the support!
  • Sweet!
  • alohanorm
    Hey, like the ads for Staples: That was Easy!
  • nagy_tamas01
    Thanks for sharing!
  • sdambrot
    Thanks for this.
  • thanks really helpful ;)
  • Glad you found this useful.
    As far as checking Tweets Adam, it does not seem to be possible. It just automatically follows anybody in the list (however, you can always unfollow them if you dislike what they say).
  • Adam
    Is there any way of checking out their tweets before I decide to follow them? Or does it, as you indicate above, just automatically follow anyone it finds who match the exported list?
  • Kind'a like you're post..
    Anyways.I would like to bookmark this one..
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