Using IFTTT to Automate Your Social Media

If you've just started promoting your CBD business on social media, you may be struggling to keep all of your profiles up to date. Whilst you should not automate everything, because then your profile becomes a robot profile and will probably get banned, automating some parts can make it easier to manage.

A great tool to help with managing multiple profiles is IFTTT. IFTTT stands for "If This Then That" and you can configure it to do something when something else happens. For example, IF 'I post to Twitter' THEN 'post to Facebook.' This is 'I post to Twitter'  and That is 'post to Facebook.'

IFTTT connects to many websites and allows you to automate a lot of things, but in this post I am going to guide you through two setups that can help with your social media:

  • Posting Instagram posts to Facebook and Twitter.
  • Posting RSS feeds to Facebook and Twitter.


Getting Started

To start, register for a free account at IFTTT. There is an extensive help section about getting started.


Posting Instagram posts to Facebook and Twitter


IFTTT allows you to post to Facebook pages and Twitter from other social media sites, but it does not allow you to post to Instagram. So if you want to update all three at once, you should post to Instagram manually, then let IFTTT auto-post to the rest. Follow these steps to set it up:
  1. Click on your account icon in the top right and choose 'Create'. 
  2. Click on 'This'.
  3. You will be taken to the 'Choose a Service' page.
  4. Search for Instagram, click on it and choose Connect on the next page.
  5. Authorise IFTTT to access Instagram, following the onscreen instructions.
  6. On the next page, choose 'Any new photo by you.'
  7. On the next page, click on 'That'.
  8. Search for Facebook Pages and click on it.
  9. Click on Connect and follow the onscreen instructions.
  10. Choose 'Upload a photo from URL'.
  11. Type in the name of the album that you want your Instagram pictures posted to and click Create action.

    That is it for Facebook. Your Instagram posts will now go to your Facebook page as well.
  12. Setting up Instagram to Twitter is very similar - Repeat steps 1-7. You should automatically skip 3 as Instagram is now connected.
  13. On the Choose action service page, search for Twitter and click on it.
  14. Click Connect on the next page and follow the onscreen instructions to connect IFTTT to Twitter.
  15. Choose 'Post a Tweet with image'.
  16. Click on 'Create action'.

    You are now done. Your Instagram posts will now go to your Twitter profile as well.

Why is this better than connecting the Instagram app?

If you connect the Instagram app to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, you can tick to post to those, when you post on Instagram. However, the Tweet will be a text only Tweet, with a link to the image.

 To show you the difference, I posted this to Instagram:


When posted to Twitter, via the Instagram app, it looks like this:

When posted by IFTTT, it looks like this:
Clearly, the Tweet looks a lot better with the image included.

On Facebook, the posts look very similar, but IFTTT includes a link to your Instagram post, which could help you increase your followers.

Other benefits are not having to remember to tick every time, not having to reconnect your account, if you use a different device and being able to manage all your automations in one place.


Posting RSS feeds to Facebook and Twitter


What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a web feed format that allows website publishers to make their content available in a standardised, computer-readable format. Users with an RSS reader can then subscribe to updates from lots of websites in one place. They add each feed to their reader and see the latest updates there, only having to click through to the website, if they want to read more.

This blog publishes an RSS feed. You can see it at http://blog.hempcbd.business/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss. It doesn't look very good to the human eye, but a computer can read it.

IFTTT allows you to create Twitter and Facebook posts from an RSS feed. If you have a blog, or other content based website that published RSS feeds, you can use IFTTT to update Facebook and Twitter every time your website is updated.

Step by Step Guide

  1. Follow steps 1 to 3 above.
  2. You will be taken to the 'Choose a Service' page. Search for RSS and click on it.
  3. Choose 'New feed item' as the trigger.
  4. Enter your feed URL, for example http://blog.hempcbd.business/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss and click 'Create trigger'.
  5. On the next page, click on 'That'.
  6. Search for Facebook Pages and click on it.
  7. Choose 'Create a link post'.
  8. On the settings page, enter some text that you would like to start each post with and then click on 'Add ingredient'.
  9. Choose EntryTitle and click create action.
  10. Repeat the above, but choose Twitter in step 6.
All updates to the RSS feed you used will be automatically posted to your Facebook page and Twitter profile. 

at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts This Week