AUTOMATE your Social Media Posting (how to)

Post automatically to all your social media and save tons of time!

If you’re like me…

• You’ve got a million things to do.
• Running multiple businesses.
• Don’t have time to micro-manage social media staff.
• Don’t want to spend money on social media marketing services.
• …and too busy (or lazy) to manage it yourself.

I’m embarrassed it took so many years but I figured it out! This is how I automate all that sh*t…

Before you begin…

Please, if you’re a serious business or trying to be one…just do what I say. Give my process a try for at least a month and from there, you can decide what to adjust or not. Some of you may over feel overwhelmed by all this new technology and give up as you start setting things up, but I promise you…the benefits are SOOOOOO worth it!

You only have to set everything up once. And once it’s all set up, and you get used to it, you will feel so limited-lessly powerful but the sudden realization of what you can do. These tools are absolutely incredible and I think EVERY business should have them. It’s a crime that they’ve been around for so long and yet people are still wasting precious time doing things manually. We’re in the future, dammit!

Follow me and you will save tremendous time and money, AND LIVE HAPPIER!

1. Choose your social media accounts

The standard social media accounts for me:

• Facebook profile
• Facebook page
• Facebook group
• Twitter
• Youtube
• LinkedIn profile
• LinkedIn page
• Instagram
• Email newsletter (I prefer Mailerlite)

Other social media accounts to consider:

• Pinterest
• Reddit
• VK

I’m not going to tell you which ones to use or their benefits. Maybe you don’t like them or feel you don’t need them, but just consider this…

…if they’re already free and you don’t have to manage them at all, wouldn’t it be nice to use some popular ones?

Anyway, it’s your choice. Set up all your accounts and we move on to the next step.

2. Get a Buffer account

The free Buffer account allows automatic posting to 3 accounts. The next one up is $15/month and allows 8 social accounts (which is plenty). You can easily get around the account limits by creating multiple accounts if you need.

3. Get a Zapier account

The free Zapier plan allows 5 Zaps, which means 5 automated functions. I recommend going immediately to the Starter plan ($20/month), which allows you up to 20 Zaps and multiple-step Zaps which is where the magic really happens.

It’s so hard to explain what Zapier is and you won’t get it until you try it. Just look it up. There are tons of guides showing the tons of possibilities you can do with just about every software or online tool out there. You can automate almost any activity that you can think of in your head! No more wasting precious time doing things manually.

4. Create automated RSS newsletters

I hope you got MailerLite, because I really love their RSS campaign features. You can set up automated RSS newsletters that send out an email to your subscribers every time your RSS feed has a new post.

Examples of automated RSS feeds:

• Blog posts – every time you blog, it sends out to all your subscribers.
• Youtube videos – every time you release a new video, it sends out to all your subscribers. (Here’s how you find your Youtube RSS feed url.)
• Social media feeds – send a weekly email of the latest social media discussions/posts to your subscribers.

You can really put whatever you want. So freaken powerful! I no longer manually send out email newsletters. It’s a thing of the past. I still kick myself for not doing this years ago. (What a lousy “tech guy”, I am!)

5. Create Zapier automations for social media

This is where the magic happens. If you thought the previous step was life-changing, this one is gonna blow your mind!

Example Zaps to create:

• RSS (blog) to Buffer (Facebook page)
• RSS (blog) to Buffer (Facebook group)
• RSS (Youtube) to Buffer (Facebook page)
• RSS (Youtube) to Buffer (Facebook group)
• RSS (blog) to Buffer (Instagram)
• RSS (whatever) to Buffer (whatever)
• etc.. and etc..

Basically…every time new posts show on your RSS, they are immediately posted to your Buffer social accounts.

Other Zaps you can make:

• Every time someone signs up on your site – they are added to your email mailing list.
• Every time someone purchases your membership – they are forwarded to schedule a video call with you.
• Every time an affiliate makes a sale – they receive an SMS notification.
• Etc and etc.

There are so many incredible things you can do with Zapier. Too many to list! It will save your life. This thing is so damn awesome. I want to cry at how many hours I’ve lost over the years, not knowing about this incredible tool and what it can do. I’ll probably make a guide later for some Zaps that I love but you could also search many others out there.

Can you skip Buffer and post directly to Zapier?

Yes, you totally can. However…Buffer makes easier management of time scheduling and gives you one convenient place to see all social posts in queue, what’s already gone out, how much engagement each one got. Many useful stats and totally worth the $15/month or whatever they charge.

Going through Buffer also gives you the chance to remove items from queue. For example, maybe you have a new Youtube video AND blog post and don’t need to post the Youtube video since it’s already embedded in your written blog. In this case, using Buffer would give you the chance to remove it from the scheduling queue.

Can you use other automation tools like IFTTT.com or Integromat?

Yes, you can. Some may seem cheaper or easier to use, or have a better UI. But the problem (for me) is that I feel they have fewer integrations available for 3rd-party apps out there. They’ll cover all the common social network sites and software apps but what about some smaller WordPress plugin? You’re more likely to find those on Zapier.

6. Recycle old posts

This is really useful for making sure old posts are recycled. And if you really think about it, any post your users haven’t seen are “new posts”. Currently, I use Nextscripts: SNAP (social network auto poster) plugin to do “Throwback Thursdays” posts on my social media where I show old stuff. It’s set up to start with my oldest one and then loop its way back to the latest one.

I’m quite sure there are better ways to do it with Zapier, but I will write that when I’ve taken the time to figure them out. Just beware….the SNAP plugin has tons of negative reviews and constant complaints that it doesn’t work from time to time. That’s because the way it posts is a bit of a hack to circumvent Facebook Groups API. It does work fine for me but you might run into little issues here and that if you’re trying to do really complicated things and across many groups and pages and such. In any case, it’s still worth the try!