IFTTT(If This Then That) is a website that creates “Recipes” to certain aspects of your Internet needs(like Facebook). For instance if its going to rain, you can get an email sent to you, or if you post a status update in Facebook it can automatically create a tweet for you in twitter. Items like Twitter, Facebook, Craigslist are called channels. Each channel has conditions that will activate the automation. We are going to create a real simple Recipe that will automatically post FSBO finds to your Facebook page. I would not encourage doing this to your personal account, but a community page, business page, or fan page will be sufficient.
Instructions
Workshop
- Go to IFTTT.com and create an account
- In the upper portion of the page select Create
- Then select This. this will take you to picking your channel we will be picking Craigslist
- You will choose a Trigger Channel of Craigslist.
(Trigger Channel is the the source that will activate the action, in our case a certain search requirement inside of craigslist)
- Select Craigslist from the options
- For the Trigger select New Post from Search
Each Channel will have several Triggers that will activate the action that will be determined next. investigate these triggers in the future and get creative - Next we will have to create the search in craigslist. So go to craigslist–> Homes For Sale–> For Sale By owner.
when you here type your search requirements I would encourage community name like town or subdivision or neighborhood.
- Copy the URL from craigslist(Ctrl +c)
- Go back to the IFTTT tab in your browser and now paste the copied URL(Ctrl +p) into the search field of the Recipe.
- Once copied select Create Trigger
- Now it is time to pick what your search will do. Select the That
- Now Pick Facebook Pages, as your next channel. It will then ask you which page you want to use, only the pages you are admin will be available. pick the page you want to submit to
now you have some information to enter. - Leave Link URL field AS-IS
- Message you will want to edit customize this message so it sounds like you are providing a customer service to your community
do not be afraid to play with the tags on the right.
- Select Create Action.
This will take you to a page where you can name the recipe and give it a description. - Give a description, to be afraid to tag it(using hash tags)