In today’s time – we are so busy with physical life that we sometimes forget that we must maintain a digital life – be it for business or for our own personal reasons – and then throw in there the fact that there are so many (too many) different social media outlets – the overload comes quickly! The ideal process would be to respond to any by posting once – can it be done?
Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus!
I’m going to cover a simi-simple yet effective “plan” that will help you maximize your time efficiently when posting and responding to your digital minions! For the duration of this post, SM will stand for Social Media.
Web Sites needed: (I’m using all in their FREE mode)
- IFTTT http://www.ilgm.com/ifttt
- Google+ to RSS http://www.ilgm.com/gprss
- HootSuite Free http://www.ilgm.com/hs
The folks over at IFTTT have a service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement: “If this, then that” (IFTTT) by linking Channels (SM Sites) to Triggers and then performing an action – called a Recipe. With 76 channels currently available – there is a lot that IFTTT can connect for you!
The first thing you want to do is make sure that you are logged into all the media outlets that you intend to post or share. ie: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, WordPress, etc.
Google doesn't make it easy to cross-post from other SM Services, but not to worry—flip it around and use Google+ as the source post and ITFFF to do the cross-posting for you by getting the RSS feed of your stream and then using that data to process your posts elsewhere.
- Get your Google ID. Go to your Google+ account, and click on your Profile. Look at the URL – there are two types of ID’s
- Numbered: https://plus.google.com/109561737349230198737/posts - The ID: 109561737349230198737
- Named: https://plus.google.com/+ChrisSgaraglino/posts The ID: +ChrisSgaraglino
- Go to: http://www.ilgm.com/gprss and create/login to your account and use the ID above to create a new entry.
- Click on the RSS Icon and grab the URL of your RSS Feed, we need this for IFTTT:http://gplusrss.com/rss/feed/c954cacf9ea4b08e3213eafa47bd0552528e4eab53bcc
Now using IFTTT we need to create the recipe for cross-posting.
- Login into http://www.ilgm.com/ifttt and click on the Create Link
- Click THIS
- Select the RSS FEED icon
- Choose a trigger, either always or based on specific criteria. I’m selecting always: NEW FEED ITEM
- Past in your RSS URL and click Create Trigger
- Now click on THAT
- Let’s select Twitter
- Select the Post Type – for this I chose Post Tweet with Image
- I leave everything as Defaulted – and select Create Action
- And to finalize the Re3cipe – click CREATE RECIPE
All you have to do now is Post to your Google+ Stream, and anything that is Public (including Communities) will be cross-posted, it’s just that simple!
What’s cool about IFTTT – is that you can share your Recipe’s
Here are a couple that I have created.
G+ to FB: https://ifttt.com/recipes/130945
G+ to Twitter: https://ifttt.com/recipes/130947
Ok, so now all your postings are being sent across the InterWeb at blazing speeds and now that you are reaching a much larger audience – you need a way to manage all the activity? That’s where HootSuite (http://www.ilgm.com/hs) comes in and takes over. HootSuite is a Social Media Management tool that allows you to save your time and your sanity by improving productivity by managing all of your social networks within one platform. Well, cool, but why go through all the jumble above, why not let HootSuite just do the cross-posting for us? Good question, but remember Google+ does not allow for direct posting to your PERSONAL Stream directly – arrggg… however, for your G+ Pages – HS will post directly – yeah!
Notes:
- I am in no way affiliated with the software companies recommended here – they are just what I have found useful as of today and can change at any time!
- The free version of Google+ to RSS runs every 120 minutes (two hours) so that means that your cross-posts will show up between now and two hours later – you can pay a small fee to get this down to every 15 minutes.
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