7 Best IFTTT Recipes to Automate Your Blog Promotion
The word “automation” isn’t something you typically find in blogging guides.
It may sound intimidating at first. But by the end of this post, I can guarantee this:
You’ll be automating your blog promotion like a pro.
Don’t believe me?
IFTTT — short for If This Then That — will make this happen.
Let me show you how.
Table Of Contents
What is IFTTT?
First and foremost, IFTTT is a free, cloud-based automation software.
It allows you to create simple “applets” with a pair of online services and tools.
There is absolutely no coding involved in the applet creation process. You simply have to use one service for the applet’s trigger, and another as the action service.
How to Create an IFTTT Applet
Let’s say you want to save a copy of your Instagram posts on Google Drive.
From your IFTTT dashboard, go to the ‘My Applets’ section and click ‘New Applet.’
Next, click ‘this’ on the “New Applet” page and enter “Instagram” into the search bar.
IFTTT should provide you with a list of services that match your keyword.
For the keyword “Instagram,” there should only be one service on the list.
For most services, you’ll have to connect your account and grant IFTTT the necessary permissions to proceed. After which, the platform should pull up a list of the potential triggers that use your chosen service.
For Instagram, the triggers you can use are as follows:
Suppose you want to save all of your Instagram posts on Google Drive.
The trigger you should use is “any new photo by you,” which fires an applet whenever you share Instagram photos.
Selecting a trigger will take you back to the New Applet page. You then have to click ‘that’ to choose the action service for your applet.
Configuring Your Applet
To complete the applet we want, type in “drive” and select “Google Drive” from the list of services.
Again, you’ll have to connect your account with IFTTT in order to use the service in your applet.
With Google Drive, the only action you can use is “upload file from URL.” This saves any file from a source URL provided automatically by the trigger service.
The last step is to configure the action you want the applet to execute.
For this particular example, no further changes are required. Perhaps the only elements you should tweak are the default file name and folder path on Google Drive.
To finish the applet creation, click ‘Create action’ and your applet should be good to go.
IFTTT will give you one last chance to review the applet before you can use it. Once you click ‘Finish,’ your applet should be activated right off the bat.
That’s it — you have successfully automated your first task on IFTTT!
Now that you know how the platform works, let’s move on to the best IFTTT recipes for blog promotion tasks.
7 Best IFTTT Recipes for Blog Promotion
The good news is, you don’t have to go through the trouble of creating an applet every single time.
There are about 54 million ready-made applets you can choose from.
All you have to do is launch IFTTT and look for the applet you need using the search bar.
Not in the mood for some research?
No problem.
Below are some of the best IFTTT recipes for time-saving automation workflows:
1. WordPress to Twitter
To demonstrate how IFTTT is used for blog promotions, allow me to start with something basic.
The WordPress to Twitter applet automatically tweets a link to new WordPress posts.
This is as simple as you can get with an IFTTT automation workflow. As soon as you publish a post on your WordPress blog, your Twitter followers will instantly be informed.
Both self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com blogs can be used in IFTTT applets. You simply need to provide your WordPress blog URL and admin account credentials.
Using the applet configuration page, you can modify the automated tweets you’ll send out through IFTTT.
On the “Tweet text” field, enter the default message you want your tweets to include. Whatever you do, be sure to use the right ingredients to make the tweet relevant.
In IFTTT, ingredients work by pulling data from the trigger service and into the applet. For example, the preset ingredients for the WordPress to Twitter applet are the post’s title and URL.
These are denoted by the following tags:
Feel free to edit the text before, after, and in-between these ingredients.
Aside from the post’s title and URL, you can also add other ingredients to your automated tweet. Some examples are the post’s featured image URL, publishing date, and category.
Why Use this Applet?
Unless you’re living under a rock, you should know that Twitter is among the largest social networks on the planet. The applet above makes sure your brand remains active on the “Twittersphere” as you generate more traffic to your site.
Check out this post for more tips on how to augment your blog’s presence on the Twitter platform.
2. Share New WordPress Blog Posts to Your Facebook Page
The name of this next IFTTT applet should be rather self-explanatory.
As the name implies, the “Share new WordPress blog posts to your Facebook Page” applet automates blog promotions on Facebook.
This applet will definitely bring you up to speed on your social media promotions.
When configuring the applet, you’ll notice that there are way less options to play around with.
That’s because some IFTTT applets were built by verified publishers. To make sure the app works and is used for the intended purpose, the customizations are limited by design.
You do, however, have the ability to add a default message to be included in the automated Facebook post.
Why Use this Applet?
It’s no secret that Facebook is the largest social media network there is.
I, myself, prioritize Facebook for my content distribution efforts through the Master Blogging Facebook page. With this applet, you can do the same while saving a lot of time and effort.
3. WordPress to Pocket
Other than social media networks, you can also take advantage of social bookmarking sites to boost your blog’s online presence.
Pocket is a popular social bookmarking service that allows users to save online articles for later.
Saved articles will then be searchable to other users. In other words, saving your own content on the site will, in turn, make it discoverable to more readers.
Using the WordPress to Pocket applet, you automate the somewhat tedious task of manually saving bookmarks.
Normally, you’ll have to download and install the browser “bookmarklet” extension. With IFTTT by your side, the entire task is put on autopilot once you connect your Pocket account.
Of course, you may customize elements such as the bookmark’s link and tags.
Feel free to modify both of them as long as you keep the “TagsAndCategories” ingredient. This should make your saved content more discoverable on Pocket’s public content cloud.
Why Use this Applet?
There are two reasons why I decided to mention this applet in this post.
First, the Pocket platform has a large, heavily-engaged user base. You may not get thousands of new readers, but the ones you do reel in are high-quality potential leads.
Pocket also lets you leverage social proof to uplift your brand authority — thanks to the “saves” count conveniently located.
It may take a while before your content gains some traction on the platform. But once your content starts racking up saves, your momentum will only increase from there.
4. WordPress to Flickr
If you blog about food, travel, photography, or anything that relies on images, you’ll love this next IFTTT recipe.
The WordPress to Flickr applet will help you reach a wider audience through your visual content.
In case you didn’t know, Flickr is an image hosting site where you can upload, manage and share your photos. It’s been used by small businesses and countless online brands for years to communicate their story through captivating pictures.
With IFTTT, your blog images automatically get uploaded to your Flickr account where they become searchable to millions of users. Just activate the applet, connect your WordPress and Flickr accounts, and focus on doing what you love.
If you want to use custom titles, descriptions, and tags for your photos, head to ‘My Applets’ on your dashboard. From there, click on the WordPress to Flickr applet to open the applet’s configuration window.
On the applet card, click the ‘Edit’ button on the upper-right corner. Take note of this button’s location as it can be used to configure each and every applet on IFTTT.
I’m showing you this because IFTTT doesn’t load up the configuration page upon activating this applet, unlike WordPress to Facebook.
The bottom of the applet configuration page is where all the customization happens.
For the WordPress to Flickr applet, I recommend changing the description to something more organic than “via WordPress.” The post’s title and tags ingredients, however, can be left as they are to keep them keyword-oriented and searchable.
Here’s a tip: utilize the description space to promote your blog. If I am to use this applet, I’d probably write something like “check out MasterBlogging.com for more blogging tips.”
Why Use this Applet?
Flickr is by no means a small image hosting site. It’s a large image hosting platform that caters to around 90 million users as of May 2019.
5. Pin New WordPress Posts to a Pinterest Board
Apart from Flickr, Pinterest is another platform for spreading your blog posts using the power of visuals.
Unlike Flickr, Pinterest is a full-on social media network centered around sharing “interests” through images. It also allows businesses and marketers to introduce their brand, products, and services to an engaged crowd.
As you can see in the screenshot below, infographics that contain marketing materials are commonplace here:
You can also create Pinterest “boards” where you can freely push out more content to your followers and other users. A board may contain a unique description and category for searchability.
WordPress to Pinterest adds a picture and link to your post on a specified board whenever you publish on WordPress.
That’s one less thing to worry about while you keep your blog post creation on full speed.
Like most other IFTTT applets, connecting your accounts would be the first step to setting up. You also have to specify the name of the board you want to use for this automation.
Why Use this Applet?
Using Pinterest to bring traffic to your website isn’t exactly a new technique.
Countless visual-driven blogs are already getting tremendous results with Pinterest for traffic generation.
If you are new to Pinterest, I suggest checking out Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course by Lauren and Alex that helped me hone my Pinterest marketing skills.
It offers step-by-step instructions on how to design and utilize pins to automate your blog traffic, leverage group boards, and analytics to maximize traffic generation through Pinterest.
6. Automatically Submit New WordPress Posts to Reddit
A successful blog not only has a consistent stream of traffic that steadily rakes in profits. It also has an active community where the brand is brought into discussions from time to time.
That’s what I learned from reading Neil Patel’s guide on getting more traffic through Reddit.
In simple terms, Reddit is a place where the online population can share and discuss pretty much anything. With the right approach, it can provide you with valuable feedback, content ideas, and potential leads.
The “Automatically Submit New WordPress Posts to Reddit” applet does exactly what it says. After you connect your accounts and specify a “subreddit,” it will automatically send newly-published posts to Reddit.
You can then focus on developing and polishing your blog content as the applet works in the background.
Just be sure to enter the right subreddit name when configuring the applet — IFTTT does not detect misspellings or typos!
Why Use this Applet?
Although Reddit doesn’t identify itself as a social media network, it does have features that make it comparable to one.
In addition to serving as a content distribution channel, you can also leverage the platform to build a following. You can also rack up “karma” points through upvotes.
Regularly submitting valuable, click-worthy content is imperative for these goals. And with this IFTTT applet, you already have that base covered.
7. WordPress to Buffer
Although IFTTT makes it possible to automate directly from WordPress to social networks, sending content to Buffer has numerous benefits.
Buffer is a social media management platform that consolidates all your content promotion efforts.
One of its core features is a customizable posting schedule. This lets you take advantage of your target audience’s social media usage patterns to maximize the visibility of your content.
The WordPress to Buffer applet eliminates the need for you to manually feed content to your queue. This means your content won’t be shared until the next posting time specified in your schedule.
After connecting your WordPress and Buffer accounts, the applet should be ready to go. You can also edit the default post message on the applet configuration page.
Why Use this Applet?
Other than sticking to a social media posting schedule, using the WordPress to Buffer applet also lets you automate Instagram posts.
For some reason, Instagram can’t be used on IFTTT as an action service. If you want to automate Instagram post, you’ll have to do so through a social media management platform like Buffer.
Using IFTTT with Other Blogging Platforms
Finally, you may notice that the pre-built IFTTT applets in this list all involve WordPress.
But what if you use another blogging platform — say Blogger, Tumblr, or Weebly?
Fortunately, you can still use IFTTT with those platforms just as well.
Using the instructions on applet creation mentioned earlier, you can put together applets similar to the ones above.
The only thing you should remember is to set your blogging platform as the trigger. There should be an option wherein the trigger activates whenever you publish a new post.
For your reference, here are the action services you should use to replicate the pre-built applets listed above:
- Facebook Page
- Flickr
- Buffer
Conclusion
IFTTT is a huge time-saver with the right usage.
Here’s my challenge to you: try to formulate your own IFTTT applet for blog promotion.
With hundreds of services supported by the platform, the only limit is your creativity.
I look forward to reading about your own concoctions in the comments below!
