How I Use Google and IFTTT to Automate My Social Media

Being a full-time student, part-time worker, and blogger means that my time is stretched in many different directions, and that means that when I’m working on Creatively Lauren, I can only focus on tasks that are really going to help advance my blog and achieve my goals. Let me tell you, scheduling social media posts is NOT one of the things that I have time to spend doing. That is why I learned how to use IFTTT {If This, Then That} and Google Calendar.

So one thing that is important to blogging and promoting yourself is social media. It is also important to share your older, relevant posts as well as your newest and freshest content. However, I don’t have the time to load my Hootsuite or fill up my Buffer queue with 10 posts. {Note: This does not mean by any means that I don’t love Buffer. I do. I still use it for Instagram, and will continue to} With this, I now do not have to worry about if I filled up my social media queues for the day before work or school, because now it’s already done; for forever!

So, all you’re going to need to do this is IFTTT, Google Calendar, and this tutorial. Yes, I did not come up with this on my own. However, it is not something that I see floating around often and I just have to share it with you. Suzi of Start a Mom Blog created this step-by-step tutorial, complete with pictures, a video, and even some downloads to help you successfully automate your social media. Head on over to her blog and follow her tutorial: http://www.startamomblog.com/automate-loop-social-media-posts-free/

Currently, I use this technique for Twitter and Facebook only. I want to try this with Pinterest, however I’m not sure if it would work correctly. I don’t know why, I just feel like the link would either not grab the right image, or the description wouldn’t correctly populate or something like that. I do want to try it, I just want to make sure I have the time to try it, and right now I’m trying to get some projects finished. {I will update you when I try, or find someone else who has tried.}

I hope you find the tutorial helpful. One thing that I had heard from another person who had tried this, was that you need to leave all of the settings as they are. Do not put the calendar on private, and don’t change the visibility of the events themselves. Leave the event setting as “calendar default”; if you change these, your recipe might not be able to run correctly.

Let me know if you plan to start scheduling your social media posts this way! So far, I have been loving it; it’s one less thing that I have to worry about now!