IF (was IFTTT) - Put the internet to work for you. Send a Tweet when you publish a Blog.

Check out IF (which was previously known as IFTTT – IF This Then That), the url is: https://ifttt.com.

IF is a web based service that operates on triggers that you set, each web service is called a channel and can be triggered or actioned.  

As basic example and one which I will use here to try and explain how useful IF is.

What we will want to happen is for IF to watch my Blogger account for any new posts. When a new blog is posted it will trigger the action of sending a tweet from my Twitter account about the new blog. All automatically. 

I will aim to show you how to set this up in this blog…

All very useful, but that is just the tip of the iceberg, you can have IF monitor all sorts of accounts and carry out an action when a change is detected such as Gmail, Instagram, ebay, etc and even follow your favourite sports teams on ESPN and be alerted, Tweet or log the scores. Although as a supporter of Newcastle United, I defo do not Tweet our scores of late L

So when you set IF to watch for a change and then carry out an action when it is triggered, this is called a recipe, just like cooking.

When you create a recipe, you can publish it, so others can use it with their accounts. This has created a great platform for anyone just starting out with IF, pretty much anything you want to do is already there and free to use or tweak for your own needs.
In fact, if you type "Blogger Twitter" into the search box, it will return many recipes already created which will do this. But if you are more curious and want to see how it works, read on..

IF have created Collections of recipes for ease of use. Some of these Collections include designed for iOS, designed for Android, the online shopper, small business owner and even for the beach goer and nature lovers, to name but a few.

Best to check https://ifttt.com for more details and play about with it..

So, back to the tutorial and what we want to show here is how to automate a Tweet when this Blogger post is published. You will need IF, Twitter and a Blogger accounts.

By now I hope you have already set up an IF account and had a good play about with and maybe even created your recipes, and got hooked on the simplicity and usefulness of IF.

You will need an IF account to follow along, so if not already set up, go to https://ifttt.com  and register.

Now that you are registered with IF, and hopefully already have Blogger and Twitter accounts, let’s get started…

• Log into https://ifttt.com 

• Click on My Recipes as highlighted above. This page will list all the recipes that you have created or added to your IF account. You can turn the recipes on and off here (back to supporting Newcastle United, I have turn all relevant recipes off until next session L ). You can also edit your recipes here and create new ones, which we will do here.

• Now click on the Create a Recipe button.

• You are now presented with the following screen, click on the word - This.

• Which in a rather cool way displays the following:

• The more eagle eyed among you will notice the top of the Blogger icon on the third row, second from the left.

• Recap - What we want to happen is for IF to watch my Blogger account for any new posts. When a new blog is posted it will trigger the action of sending a tweet from my Twitter account about the new blog. All automatically.

• Blogger is the Trigger Channel, therefore we will either scroll down to the Blogger icon or search for Blogger and then click on the Blogger icon.

• As a point to note, this is a good place to browse to see what services are supported by IF.

• After clicking on the Blogger icon, you will be presented with all the various options to set the trigger. There are only options with blogger which are shown below.

• For the purposes of this demo, we will chose Any new post by clicking on it. The other option of new post labelled is useful if you only want to tweet about certain posts, not all of them.

• If you are happy with your selection to proceed. 

• So basically that is the trigger set, now we have to decide what we want to do when IF is triggered. Again, for this tutorial we will have IF send a Tweet informing that the new blog has been posted.

• So now click on the word “that”. 

• Again in a rather cool way your options will be displayed. I started to search for Twitter and the result was returned after a few letters.

• Now, simply click on the Twitter icon to set as your action channel. You are now presented with the action options for the Twitter channel.

• So let’s select Post a tweet with image as the action we want IF to complete.

• Great, almost done. You are now offered the opportunity to add your own text to the Tweet, but you don’t have to add..

• Note that IF has automatically inserted the Post Title and the Post Image url, do not overwrite as this are dynamic and created each time the IF runs this recipe.

• Now click on the Create Action button.

• You have now told IF what channel to watch for changes and if triggered then carry out an action. All you have to do now is change the title is you want and decide whether to be notified when the recipe is triggered. For the purposes of this, the notifications will be useful, as mentioned I have either turned off the recipes or the notifications of Newcastle United results, maybe be able to turn them on again next year when we start to play better J

• Now just click on the Create Recipe button and you’re done.

• The recipe will now show in My Recipes section and can be edited if required.

• So that’s it, when I post this blog, IF should send a Tweet from my chosen account that I have just posted a new blog. All automatically and pretty cool J

Now, get stuck into IF, have a good play about & Put the internet to work for you 

Thanks for reading...

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