How to Automate WordPress and Social Media With IFTTT (& More)

How to Automate WordPress and Social Media with IFTTT (Updated for 2023)

Are you looking to save time and streamline your WordPress website‘s social media marketing? Automatically sharing your WordPress posts on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn is a great way to boost your content‘s reach and drive more traffic to your site.

In this guide, we‘ll show you how to automate WordPress and social media posting using the free web-based service IFTTT (If This, Then That). We‘ll walk through setting up an IFTTT account, connecting it to WordPress and your social media profiles, and creating useful automations, or what IFTTT calls "applets".

By the end, you‘ll be able to automatically share WordPress posts on social media, and even set up more advanced workflows to keep your website in sync with social networks and other web services. Let‘s get started!

What is IFTTT?

IFTTT is a free online platform that allows you to create conditional statements, called applets, that link together different web services and devices. An applet follows the basic structure of "If This happens, Then do That" – hence the name IFTTT.

For example, you could create an applet that says: "If a new post is published in WordPress, Then share the post on Twitter." With this automation in place, every time you publish an article on your WordPress site, a tweet will automatically be posted with a link to it.

IFTTT supports a huge range of services and devices, from social media apps and website builders to smart home gadgets, wearables, voice assistants and more. The platform provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for creating applets, so you don‘t need any coding knowledge to set up automations.

Why Automate WordPress and Social Media?

The main benefit of automating your WordPress site‘s social media posting is saving time. Instead of manually copying the URL of your latest article and composing posts for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., you can set up automations to handle it all for you. This frees you up to focus on more important tasks like content creation, SEO, and engaging with your audience.

Automating social media posting can also help you maintain a more active and consistent presence on social networks. By sharing every new WordPress post automatically, you ensure that your social profiles always have fresh content, even if you don‘t have time to post manually. This signals to social algorithms that your profiles are active and engaging, which can help expand your reach over time.

Additionally, automating WordPress and social media can lead to more website traffic, as your content is exposed to a wider audience on social networks. Even if you‘re not able to dedicate hours to social media marketing, you can keep a steady stream of visitors flowing to your WordPress site on autopilot.

Of course, there are some potential downsides to consider. Automating all of your social posts means you have less control over the timing, formatting and messaging of what gets shared. There‘s also a risk of coming across as robotic or impersonal if every post looks auto-generated.

We‘ll share some tips later on for optimizing your IFTTT applets and mixing in manual posting. But first, let‘s go through the steps of setting up WordPress and social media automation with IFTTT.

How to Set Up IFTTT to Automate WordPress and Social Media

Step 1: Create an IFTTT Account
Head to ifttt.com and click "Sign up" in the top-right corner. You can create an account using your email address, Google, Apple, or Facebook account. Once signed in, you‘ll be prompted to configure some initial settings like turning on notifications. You can leave these as default for now.

Step 2: Connect WordPress to IFTTT
There are a couple of ways to link your WordPress site to IFTTT. The easiest is to use the official WordPress.com service, which works with both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress sites. To connect it:

1. Click your profile icon and select "Services"
2. Search for "WordPress" and select the WordPress.com service
3. Click "Connect"
4. Log in to your WordPress.com account, or click "Sign up" to create one
5. Click "Approve" to grant IFTTT access to your WordPress site

Alternatively, you can use the Webhooks service to connect a self-hosted WordPress site to IFTTT via the IFTTT Webhook plugin, or the RSS Feed service to trigger applets based on your WordPress site‘s RSS feed URL.

Step 3: Connect Social Media Accounts
Next, you‘ll need to link the social media accounts you want to post to. The process is similar to connecting WordPress:

1. Go to your IFTTT Services page
2. Search for the social network you want to connect (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram)
3. Click "Connect" next to the service
4. Log in to your social media account and grant permissions to IFTTT

Repeat this process for each social network you want to automate posting to from WordPress. Keep in mind that as of 2023, IFTTT does not have direct services for Instagram posting. However you can connect an Instagram Business account via the Facebook Pages service.

Step 4: Set Up Your First Applet
Now that you‘ve connected WordPress and your socials, it‘s time to create an applet to automate posting.

1. Click "Create" in the IFTTT top menu
2. Click "Add" and search for WordPress as your trigger service
3. Choose your WordPress trigger (for example, "Any new post")
4. Click "Create trigger"
5. Click the "+" button to set up your action service
6. Choose the social network you want to post to
7. Select "Create a post" or the equivalent posting action
8. Customize the text, link, and other fields for the social post
9. Click "Create action"

Below the post text field, you can click "Add ingredient" to automatically insert elements from your WordPress post like the title, URL, excerpt, featured image, author, and more. This lets you create dynamic social posts that include the key details of your WordPress content.

For example, here‘s a sample applet that automatically tweets a link to new WordPress posts:

If (trigger): New post created in WordPress
Then (action): Create a tweet with the text "New blog post: {{title}}
{{excerpt}}
{{url}}"

Once you‘ve created your action, give your applet a name and click "Finish". Congrats, your first WordPress to social media automation is up and running! You can create additional applets for other networks by repeating steps 4-8.

Advanced WordPress + IFTTT Automations

Sharing new WordPress posts on social media is one of the most common use cases for IFTTT. But there are many other ways you can use the platform to streamline your WordPress workflows:

• Post WordPress content as threads on Twitter by stringing together multiple tweets in an applet
• Share WordPress posts in Facebook Groups using the Facebook Group posting service
• Create WordPress photo galleries from images posted on Instagram
• Automatically share WordPress posts on Pinterest boards
• Sync content from a WordPress form plugin to Google Sheets for lead tracking
• Log WordPress contact form submissions in a Slack channel
• Create WordPress users from new Mailchimp subscribers

With 1000+ apps and services supported, the possibilities of what you can automate between WordPress and other platforms are virtually limitless.

Tips for Optimizing WordPress + IFTTT Automations

While setting up IFTTT applets is fairly straightforward, there are a few best practices to keep in mind:

Customize your post text: Avoid generic post templates and take the time to craft engaging, contextual social copy that entices people to click through to your WordPress content. Use emojis, hashtags, and compelling post structures.

Set up conditional logic: Make your automations more intelligent by setting up IFTTT filtering code to only post when certain conditions are met (e.g. if a WordPress post has a specific tag or category). This prevents irrelevant or low-quality posts from cluttering your feed.

Test and monitor: Whenever you create a new applet, test it out by publishing a draft post on WordPress and making sure it shows up correctly on the target social network. Regularly check your social profiles to make sure automations are working smoothly.

Mix in manual posting: Don‘t rely solely on automations for your social media presence. Supplement your auto-posted content with original, natively published posts to maintain an authentic brand voice and build community. Engage in conversations and respond to comments.

Consider other automation tools: IFTTT is just one option for syncing WordPress and social media. Other popular solutions include Zapier, Uncanny Automator, Jetpack Publicize, Blog2Social, WP to Twitter, and more. Test out a few to see what works best for your needs.

Final Thoughts

Automating your WordPress site‘s social media posting with IFTTT is an easy way to amplify your content‘s reach, drive more website traffic, and save hours of manual work each week. By connecting WordPress to your social profiles and setting up applets, you can "set it and forget it" and keep your social feeds populated with fresh posts.

The key is to take the time to set up your automations thoughtfully, with well-crafted, engaging post templates and smart logic. Mix in some manually posted content, and keep an eye on your social analytics to see what‘s resonating.

With IFTTT doing the heavy lifting of content distribution, you can focus on what matters most to move the needle for your business: creating outstanding content, building relationships, and achieving your goals. So go ahead and give WordPress and social media automation a try – your future self will thank you.