Time is money… it’s so true! And as you have probably already discovered, as a small business owner, there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you have to do. So today I am going to teach you how to MAXIMIZE your marketing reach WHILE limiting time spent! Let’s roll!

First, the most important thing is to get your company on to as many forms of social media as possible. Currently (July 2020) these are the most compatible social media sites for automation:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Blogger.com / WordPress
• If you like to post videos you can also utilize YouTube and Vimeo.

SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS NOT CURRENTLY COMPATIBLE WITH AUTOMATION

• Parler
• SnapChat
• Pinterest
• DailyMotion

Unfortunately, at this time it is basically impossible to automate postings to these sites. Hopefully in the future there will be a way but for now you just have to post to each of these sites individually. Sigh!

LET’S GET AUTOMATING!!!!!

So, before you read this article, set up those accounts for your business and fill out your profile; you know, make ‘em look nice!

HOW TO SET UP AUTOMATION

Go to https://ifttt.com/ (it’s pronounced like “gift”, without the g…, so call it “ift””. The reason it is called this is because the entire site is based on one equation, which is:

“If This, Then That”... meaning, “if I post this, then post it here, and here also”. Get it?

So, create a free account.

Now you can start creating “triggers”. So, start by searching for what you want to make a trigger for:

Then you can scroll through the MASSIVE list of triggers and pick what you want to do. NOTE: It REALLY helps to get out a pen and paper and write down the triggers because if you don’t you’ll end up with a mess of the same post being re-posted on the same sites over and over; nobody wants to see your facebook video appear 18 times in a row in their feed! Trust me, I have spent YEARS learning how to get this right!

TIP: If possible, make Instagram your starting point, meaning you will post your photo (or video) on instagram and ifttt will auto-post it to Facebook, Blogger, etc. The reason I tell you to do it this way is because I have had a VERY HARD TIME trying to create triggers that post FROM other sites TO Instagram, but it is super simple to auto-post FROM Instagram. So, here is how I would personally suggest setting up triggers:

1. Instagram posts to Facebook
2. Facebook posts to Twitter
3. Facebook post to Tumblr (if you cannot get this to work, Blogger can also post to Tumblr)
4. Twitter Posts to Blogger / WordPress

If you successfully set up those triggers, you will be able to post on one site and have it re-post to almost all other social media.

Once again, I REALLY, REALLY, REALLLLY suggest you write down your triggers because it gets mega confusing REAL quick!

When you find a trigger you like, click on it:

Then set it up:

What you are going to need to do is to log-in to your Facebook and your twitter and grant ifttt permission to post onto them. DON’T WORRY, IFTTT DOES NOT POST CRAP! The only thing that EVER gets posted is what YOU post.

Once you think you have a trigger set up correctly, try it out. Post something random, like “Exciting New Products Coming Tomorrow” (or whatever) and make sure it is set up properly. Your trigger should work pretty quickly. If 25 minutes have passed and it still has not auto-posted, there’s definitely something wrong.

TROUBLESHOOTING

1. I have found it easiest to try disconnecting, then reconnecting my social media sites. Sometimes all that is needed is to update “permissions”. When you reconnect it automatically fixes the issue
2. If that doesn’t work then you may want to delete that trigger and try a different one. Some of the triggers just don’t work. I believe every trigger is created by USERS of Ifttt, so it is totally possible some could be faulty.
3. You CAN make your own triggers! On ifttt they are called “applets”.
4. If you discover that things keep posting over and over, it’s because you didn’t follow my advice and write down your triggers! It’s easiest to delete almost everything and start over, but this time write it down!
5. And lastly, just keep trying. You WILL get it to work!