Only a few people have realized the number of hours of work that are invested in a blog. Having a blog isn’t just about writing articles. You also have to promote, send a lot of emails, do administration tasks, worry about security, make site backups, and so on. The list is very long!
Fortunately, we come across some tools along the way that will help us to do the tasks that are necessary for the success of our blogs. IFTTT is one of them, and it can help you by automating a lot of your recurrent tasks!
What is IFTTT ?
It is a website that automates tasks on the web. As IFTTT means “If This, Then That”, it can be translated as an action that declares another. For example: If a new article is published on a WordPress blog, then share it on Twitter.
It is possible to connect several services on IFTTT. All the popular social networks are there, Rogers, Philips Hue lights, Google Calendar, Todoist, and many more.
What is an Applet ?
An applet is each “If This, Then That” that you use on your account. This is every automation you create. Each blue square you see on the screenshot above is called an applet!
My applets
Applets for social media
- If I post a picture on Instagram, then tweet a native picture on my Twitter account
Since I started using this applet, I’ve received a lot more replies and retweets! I have always shared my Instagram photos on Twitter via the option while publishing a photo, but very few people bothered to go see the photo on Instagram – even less interacted with me. That is now the case, and it is perfectly understandable. Tweets with images have proved, for a long time, to have more engagement.
- If an event on my calendar starts with #twitter, then tweet it!
As you migjt know, I have been using Hootsuite for a long time (since the beginning of my blog, actually!)… On the other hand, one of the limitations of the website is the inability to plan a tweet on a recurring basis. So, I found myself copying / pasting my tweets every 3 weeks for sometimes a whole year. So it’s a very unpleasant task to do!
Now, I plan some tweets (the most repetitive) in Google Calendar. I create an event with the title “#twitter”. In the description, I write the content of the tweet to be published. As it is created as an event, it is very easy to make them repeat according to certain criteria (every monday every 2 weeks, for example). The best part of this is I don’t have any service to use anymore : not Buffer, not Hootsuite, nothing! Just my calendar and Twitter.
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WordPress applets
- If a post is published, then post a message in a slack channel
I am in a Slack team for women in tech. The team has a #blogs channel where we can do promotion. However, when I am studying at university, I have less time for promotion. This applet comes in handy during that time.
- If a WordPress post is published, then do a backup on Google Drive
I do my backups with the plugin UpdraftPlus, but we never have too much backups, right?!? Especially when we know the amount of time that is invested in a blog post! Therefore, everytime I publish a new post, I have a copy safe on Google Drive!
- If a WordPress post is published, then share the post on LinkedIn
Before automating LinkedIn publications, I never used this professional social network to advertise. Yet, you have to dare to make your blog known when you are proud of it, especially to your professional connections! We should all dare to put our personal projects forward!
- If a new WordPress post is published and is in the “blogging” category, then share it in a subreddit
Some subreddits only accept publications related to a certain subject. Thus, I am able to schedule the automatic publication of the articles when they correspond to the criteria. It saves time! 🙂
Productivity applets
- If an email is starred on Gmail, then create a task on Todoist
If you were not aware already, I’ll tell you: I really mismanage my emails! I’m trying to improve myself, and this IFTTT applet helps me a lot! As soon as I star to an email, a task is created in my Todoist account. That way, I don’t forget to reply to my emails (well, less!)
Conclusion
I hope that this list of applets I use on IFTTT was useful to you! Let me know in the comments if you have others to suggest! 🙂
6 comments
I still have to figure out how I’m going to use ifttt. thanks for reminding me I think I will add it to my todo for this week.
Awesome! Let me know if you need any help. I’m always happy to help 🙂
Marie
I really want to use this service. Unfortunately it keeps saying this “Unable to verify WordPress credentials. Please try again.” and I haven’t enabled two step authentication. I wonder what could be the problem. I you faced a similar problem could you help?
Mmmh no, never! In what step do you need WordPress? For the Google Drive one?
Marie
Hey! I came over from Reddit 🙂 I wanted to know if there was a way to find applets much easier? Because I could waste hours on that stupid site and end up being furious!
Aww Claire!! I mostly choose the tools I use the most like Google Calendar, Buffer, Twitter, Todoist, Gmail… browse through the applets! I also go with the ones that are on the banners on the homepage, the “featured” ones, it helps to find the best applets!
Hope I could help! xx
Marie