alt="How to Save Time in Blog Marketing with IFTTT" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/laptop-500x333_c.jpg" />
If you find yourself lost in the social media time suck of trying to keep up with promotion on several of social media sites, IFTTT is going to be the best thing you ever discovered for marketing your blog. IFTTT is pronounced just like the word “gift” but without the “G”. It can be a little hard to define what IFTTT actually is. First of all, it is a web-based service that has a language all its own. Brad Chacos explained this programming pretty well on href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2044579/how-to-use-ifttt-to-automate-your-online-life.html" target="_blank">PC World when he said:
IFTTT is short for “If this, then that,” and the core building blocks of the service are based around that simple, cause-and-effect relationship. A trigger event happens, and a resulting action occurs.
To create these cause/effect scenarios, you will write a recipe with the “if this, then that” formula. Don’t worry about the actual writing of these “recipes”, though, because not only are we going to give you plenty of sample recipes to try out specifically for blog marketing, but IFTTT.com will give you additional samples when you sign up for an account with them.
How Can IFTTT Save You Time?
Although we will be focusing on how IFTTT can save you time on blog marketing for this article, it is worth mentioning that there are many other ways these recipes can simplify your online actions.
- Like a photo on Facebook and have it save automatically to Dropbox
- Pin something on Pinboard and let your friends know on Twitter
You can see how this will easily save you steps in your regular daily routine. If you are in the habit of taking the time to download a photo from Facebook and then go over to Dropbox to save it, you will now spend a mere second clicking a “like” button instead and IFTTT will automate the download and upload process for you.
Tip: Also read Gina’s href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/10-tips-to-help-you-find-time-to-blog/">How to Find Time to Blog for other time-saving strategies in blogging.
Getting Started
You may already have an IFTTT.com account. If so, you can skip to the next section on actual recipes you can use. However, if this is the first time you’ve heard of IFTTT, we are going to walk you through setting up an account. Then, we’ll get to the recipes that will change blog marketing for you forever.
- Go to href="https://ifttt.com/" target="_blank">IFTTT.com and click on the blue button that says “Join Now”.
- Choose a username, fill in your e-mail and choose a password. Click on “Create Account”.
- Check your e-mail and confirm the account. You are now ready to sign in and start adding recipes.
Even better? The first time you sign in, you’ll be on your dashboard. Scroll down to the section titled “Suggested Recipes” for some ready-made recipes that will save you time and help you become familiar with how the “if this, then that” statements work and integrate with various social media sites. Just remember that “if” is the trigger, and “then” is the action. It is truly as simple as it sounds.
To Add a Recipe
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Recipes Specifically for Blog Marketing
If you want to save time on marketing, then you should try these IFTTT tips. Keep in mind that you need to activate “channels” to use these recipes. A href="https://ifttt.com/channels" target="_blank">complete list of channels is on the IFTTT website. We will look at some of the more popular channels for these recipes, but there are numerous possibilities for new recipes.
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For the recipes below, I’ll be adding these to my own IFTTT account, at least temporarily, to show you the finished recipe. You will need to walk through the If/Then steps, activating the appropriate channels, on your own account. IFTTT.com talks you through every step of the process and you’ll have the recipes below as guides.
class="default" summary="IFTTT Recipes">
scope="col">IFTTT Recipesscope="col">Description
width="300">alt="IFTTT recipe for FB to Twitter" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-facebook-then-twitter.png" width="300" height="94" />| Anytime a new post goes up on your blog, post to Facebook automatically with a link to the article. |
width="300">alt="Twitter to LinkedIn IFTTT recipe" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-tweet-product-then-linkedin.png" width="300" height="105" />| Use Blogger? No problem. You can still automate social media updates about posts. Here is one recipe. |
| alt="Twitter to LinkedIn IFTTT recipe" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-tweet-then-dropbox.png" width="300" height="99" /> | You can even set up hashtags with IFTTT recipes. For example, you probably noticed in the recipes above that I used hashtags to indicate when to post. So, if I want a new product shared on LinkedIn, I simply use that hashtag in my Tweet. |
| href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/how-to-save-time-in-blog-marketing-with-ifttt/attachment/if-youtube-then-wordpress/" rel="attachment wp-att-7260">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7260" alt="if-youtube-then-wordpress" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-youtube-then-wordpress.png" width="300" height="98" /> | Post a tutorial related to your product or service to YouTube and set up an IFTTT recipe to automatically post the video to your blog to get the word out to readers who might not check YouTube separately. |
| href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/how-to-save-time-in-blog-marketing-with-ifttt/attachment/if-add-event-then-facebook/" rel="attachment wp-att-7261">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7261" alt="IFTTT" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-add-event-then-facebook.png" width="300" height="97" /> | Set up an IFTTT recipe so that when you add a calendar event to your Yahoo Calendar (you can create this for Google calendar, too), it will automatically notify your page on Yahoo of the addition. One example might be if you are planning an online event and you add it to your calendar. It will then be announced to your Facebook business page (or whatever page you indicate) as well. |
| href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/how-to-save-time-in-blog-marketing-with-ifttt/attachment/if-wordpress-then-story/" rel="attachment wp-att-7262">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7262" alt="IFTTT" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-wordpress-then-story.png" width="300" height="99" /> | Have you checked out StoryPad? this is a new, fun way to stay in touch with people and reach new connections. Basically, you add different stories you’ve read, posted, etc. and people can check them out as a whole and read what you’ve read. What a great marketing tool when you set up new posts on your blog to automatically post to your StoryPad. Set it up once and never have to think about it again! |
| href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/blogging-tips/how-to-save-time-in-blog-marketing-with-ifttt/attachment/if-pocket-then-wordpress/" rel="attachment wp-att-7264">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7264" alt="IFTTT" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/if-pocket-then-wordpress.png" width="300" height="99" /> | Pocket is a convenient place to save articles you find interesting and want to return to later, but in an incoming marketing move, if you are short on topics for your blog, you can point readers to these items of interest automatically, allow discussion to be born and create instant community on your blog. Simple set up an IFTTT recipe that takes your tagged Pocket posts and blurbs about them on your WordPress blog. |
Jack Flanagan on The Next Web blog suggested the following to keep old tweets for your records and future marketing:
dir="ltr">Twitter only keeps about a week’s worth of tweets available through its Search. So what happens when you want to access all of your old statuses? With this recipe, every time you tweet, your status gets copied into a Dropbox folder.
Mobile Office
These days, we carry out mobile devices everywhere. What better use of that down time waiting in a doctor’s office or riding a subway than to do a bit of marketing on the run?
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class="wp-caption-text">Saving contacts automatically to a Google spreadsheet. If a new contact is added to IOS contacts, then contact is saved to Google spreadsheet.
style="text-align: left;">You could also take a video of your new product and post it immediately to YouTube, all from your iPhone.
style="text-align: left;">There are a number of ways to achieve this. Run into a fan of your company or a satisfied customer? Try this recipe, courtesy of
Tired of trying to figure out complicated coding or manually posting blog updates to social media? Try these recipes to make blog marketing easier.
Now that you’ve started with these recipes, keep looking at ways to simplify your online life with IFTTT. The IFTTT blog offers regular articles on topics like href="http://blog.ifttt.com/post/63020541318/office-hero-recipes-for-the-workplace-mvp" target="_blank">Office Heroes: Recipes for the Workplace that may help you save even more time. Each recipe will be as unique as your company’s individual social media experience. The key to getting IFTTT to work for you is to look at what items you find yourself cross-posting and then set up recipes to grab a single post and send it to multiple places.
For example, set up a recipe to post a link to new blog posts onto Facebook. Then, set up a recipe to post a link on Twitter about new blog posts. Don’t forget LinkedIn and BuzzFeed. Soon, you’ll find that you’re spending less time on social media marketing, which will free up more time for building your business.
