how to create a twitter bot

In my previous post I’ve given a php script which can be used to create twitter bots. Here I’m explaining how to create twitter bot using that app. No coding skills are required to create bot using the above script. Before going through this article, please make sure that you’ve,

1. a twitter account for your bot,

2. a web server with latest version of php installed.

This app works on OAuth, so you’ve to get API key for your bot application. To get twitter API keys, go to http://dev.twitter.com and register your app. (Look at the below table for help on filling up required fields)

Now save your application and get Consumer key and Consumer secret, and create Access token for your account. Then get your Access token and Access token secret.

For example:

Now download twitter bot php script from here and upload it to your web server using ftp. Then edit config.php and fill up required fields. i.e CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, ACCESS_TOKEN, ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET

Eg:

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define('CONSUMER_KEY', 'as6d5f4a96s8f4as65df');
define('CONSUMER_SECRET', 'asdf7a9847tq34523654df6g4');
define('ACCESS_TOKEN', 'sdf45as68f7re8gha65df4vbas8das6f8as6df87');
define('ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET', 'asdf45as8df74a89g5a6s4g-as5df4as-sad56f4a6s');

Then replace search key word with the word of your bot’s subject. It retweets all the tweets containing that word. Eg: for a Linux bot replace search key word with Linux. rpp means the number of tweets to grab at once. For an ideal bot, this should be less than 20. Otherwise your account would be suspended..

Example:

$search = $twitter->get('search', array('q' => 'linux', 'rpp' => 15));

Now save the file and try to view that file in your browser. i.e http://yourwebsite/twitterbot/config.php. If you see a blank page and your bot starts to tweet, then it indicates thumbs up . Now set Cron Job for config.php file at the interval of 30 minutes.

/usr/bin/php -q /home/your_username/public_html/twitterbot/config.php

Thats all. Your bot should be working now!

Download twitter bot script: [download id="1"]

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