Syndicating Blog Posts and Status Updates
I L-O-V-E love IFTTT.com (If This Then That). It has made syndication of my blog posts and social media updates much easier. When I create a post in any of my WordPress blogs it automatically triggers a recipe in IFTTT to update a specific Facebook Fan Page. When a new post, status update or picture is added to my Facebook Fan Page it is syndicated publicly to my personal Facebook page, LinkedIn, and Tumblr (all separate recipes). Since I have six blogs and IFTTT only allows one blog per email address I had to create one account for each of my WordPress blogs so that I could syndicate the same way across all five WordPress blogs and one Blogger blog (I was able to bundle the Blogger account in with one of the WordPress accounts). Since I have only one Instagram account for all my blogs the syndication is a little wonky. I don’t want to spam, so I only have it update one Fan Page from Instagram and the IFTTT recipes are processed to take care of the rest. It takes some time to create all the recipes required to do this, but it is well worth the time saved once they are all done. Or you can simply follow the links in the paragraph above to all my shared recipes and get started that way ;-).
Facebook & Twitter & IFTTT.com
If you notice I do not have Twitter mentioned in my IFTTT recipes. This may change but for now I use the Facebook Twitter syndication app. I have separate Twitter accounts set up for my Facebook page and one for all my Facebook Fan Page updates. I did this to minimize spamming on my Twitter account. I noticed that because Twitter allows syndication direct from Facebook, personal and fan pages, it was easier to just allow it do to it’s thing. The problem I was running into was that the Fan Pages were syndicated to my Personal feed and to Twitter as was the Personal Feed syndicated to Twitter. So instead of just one post from an update I was getting two and sometimes three. Sure the links were slightly different, but I was going to make someone angry if I allowed it to keep going this way. So, what I did instead of allowing ALL my posts, fan page and personal page, to update one account I set my personal page to one account and all my fan pages which have different content to my main account.
Basically, if you already have all your pages and personal feeds on Facebook set to syndicate to one Twitter account all you have to do is go to the settings page for your Twitter syndication and remove the syndication (Unlink from Twitter) from your Personal Page to start this process. DO NOT TOUCH THE REST OF YOUR PAGES! Then go to Twitter and log out that account and log into your second account. Go back to the Facebook -> Twitter syndication settings page and ADD your currently logged in Twitter account to your Facebook Personal Page and go through the authorization process on Twitter. So even if you aren’t logged into those accounts you will have syndication to them based on the combination of the IFTTT.com recipes and the Facebook to Twitter syndication settings.
Setting Reminders Using IFTTT.com
It dawned on me the other day that I could have IFTTT.com remind me to make entries on my calendar based on blogger opportunities that I post on my blog. I try to make sure that all of them are done immediately as I sign up, but you know how life is, inevitably one slips under the radar. With this new recipe as long as I have a post that coincides with the new event, which there usually is, I’ll get an email into my promotions only email inbox with a subject reminding me to create the calendar event! Just one more way to fool (me) proof the promotions process. Please use this if you find it helpful. You can set the subject and email address where you want it set and then if need be create a filter in your mailbox so that it goes to a specific promotions only folder (if you don’t have an email address just for promos & events).
screenshot of IFTTT.com
I use this recipe to help me remember to add an event to my calendar. As a blogger promoting events is a key part of my daily work. Forgetting to do this can mean being blacklisted by other bloggers or PR reps for brands! I have a specific email set up for promotions and the email gets sent to it, everything in that inbox has to be marked off so I know I’m not forgetting anything.
Firstly, I’m a mom and wife. Professionally, IT consulting is my job and blogging is the outlet for my passions. I write about things that affect the everyday life of a stay-at-home parent or any parent for that matter such as parenting, relationships, discipline, the media, product reviews, giveaways, social media, food, cooking, gardening and anything else that might come my way.
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