How to Automate your Social Media Marketing

Today I am going to show you a web tool called IFTTT that can make your life easier on the Internet. I am certain there are some tasks you would like to make automatic on the web. In this post you will learn how to automate your Social Media marketing easily with IFTTT.

IFTTT ~ automate your Social Media marketing

You may want to send a tweet or a FaceBook status each time you publish a blog post, or create a post on your blog each time you post to FaceBook.

A lot is possible with IFTTT which stands for “IF This Then That”.

automate your Social Media marketing

You can create powerful connections with one simple statement “if this then that”, which is called a “Recipe”. In the “Recipe” you write your condition with a “Trigger” and an “Action”. Of course you have to add a few “Ingredients” in the recipe.

There are at the moment 106 channels in IFTTT that you can use to build your recipes.

IFTTT channels

You will certainly find Twitter, FaceBook, Linkedin, WordPress, Blogger, Feed, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr and Youtube very useful if you are an Internet Marketer and want to automate your Social Media marketing.

IFTTT channels

There are lots of channels that you can combine in recipes to increase your social media marketing visibility.

How to Automate your Social Media Marketing

Let’s create a recipe now.

If you don’t have an IFTTT account create one here, and login.

Let’s say that you want some of your FaceBook posts to be also posted on your FaceBook page. You don’t want to post everything on your page, but only those profile posts that are relevant to the topic of your page. How can you do that?

Well, with IFTTT, it’s a piece of cake and I am going to show you how.

After you have logged in IFTTT, locate the “Create” link at the top of the page and click on it to get started.

automate your Social Media marketing - create

You will be directed to this page.

IFTTT - If This Then that

Notice that the formula “IF This Then That” is all you have on the page.

The blue “this” is clickable. Click on it.

On the next page type “Facebook”.

IFTTT - If This Then that - FaceBook

You are shown 3 possible channels for FaceBook, which are FaceBook, FaceBook groups and FaceBook pages.

Click on the FaceBook icon. It’s where you want the posts to be copied from.

You will be directed to the next step to choose a trigger.

New status message by you with hashtag

Note: As I have already activated this channel, this page above is displayed. If you haven’t activated the channel, a pop-up will show to activate the application. The process is straight forward, just a few links to click.

There are two options to look at:
– New status message by you.
– New status message by you with hashtag.

These 2 options trigger fires every time you create a plain text status message on your FaceBook profile. It doesn’t if it is an image or a link, there are other options for this down the page.

You don’t want to have your family and close friend posts to be copied onto your FaceBook page, so you need to tell the application when to post on the page. This is done with the “hashtag”.

A hashtag is the sign # with a word or phrase without space after it like #iLikeThisPost (it can be in all upper or lower case, it doesn’t matter)

Choose the option:
“New status message by you with hashtag”

You will see step 3 of the process.

#iLikeThisPost

Enter your hashtag: #iLikeThisPost

Click the “Create Trigger” blue button.

You will see this page.

IFTTT - ifthisthenthat

Now, you can see that the first part of the formula is completed.

IF

New status message by Michel Gerard with hashtag #iLikeThisPost

THEN

THAT

You need to tell IFTTT what to do then.

Click on the “that” blue link.

You have now to choose your “Action” channel.
Type “Facebook”.

IFTTT - FaceBook Pages

You want to post on your FaceBook page, click on FaceBook pages.

It will ask you to activate the channel, which I am going to do.

IFTTT - FaceBook activation

Click the “Activate” blue button.

On the pop-up you will have all your pages showing in a menu (providing you have already activated the FaceBook channel).

IFTTT - FaceBook activation

Select the page you want to post to and click the “Update” blue button.

It is now activated.

IFTTT - FaceBook activation

Click the “Done” blue button.

IFTTT - FaceBook channel activation

Click the “Continue to the next step” blue button.

As you can see that’s quite a lot of clicking, but that’s very easy.

You are now on the next step, which is “Choose an Action”.

IFTTT - choose an action

You want to “Create a status message” to match the text message you post in your FaceBook profile.

The next step is to “Complete Action Fields”.

It is where you tell the application what to have in the text message for your FaceBook page.

Click on the “+” sign.

IFTTT - Complete Action Fields

The different “Ingredients” you can use in your “Recipe” will show in a menu.

IFTTT - Complete Action Fields

You have 4 ingredients available.

Select “MessageNoHashtag” and click “Add Ingredient”.

IFTTT - Add ingredients

In this example I have also added “From” and “UpdateAt”.

IFTTT - ingredients added 

You can now click the “Create Action” blue button.

This is the seventh and last step of this process.

The formula is now complete.

IFTTT - automate your Social Media marketing

Click on “Create Recipe” blue button. 

YOU ARE DONE!

IFTTT - Create Recipe

The “Recipe” is:

If new status message by Michel Gerard with hashtag #iLikeThisPost, then create a status message on Michel Gerard

If for some reason you want to turn-off the Recipe, click on the first button and it will turn grey.

IFTTT - turn off recipe 

Testing the Recipe on FaceBook

Make sure that the “Recipe” is active.

Go to your profile and post a status.

Testing the Recipe on FaceBook

Do not forget to add the hashtag: #iLikeThisPost

If you do not add the hashtag or misspell it, the post will not be copied to your FaceBook Page.

This is the post on the FaceBook Page.

From FaceBook profile to FaceBook page.

Notice under the Name “Posted by IFTTT”.

The post is from Profile “Michel Gerard”, dated “May 27, 2014 at 07:15PM”.

If this is something you don’t want to show, you may edit the recipe and only leave the “Message” option without the hashtag.

I hope you have found this tutorial about how to automate your Social Media marketing useful.

Have fun with IFTTT.

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