How to Automate your Business - for Free
Update January 2022: Sorry but this post is now archived as Pinterest no longer let you schedule pins with IFTTT.
I guess nothing lasts forever!!
You may not know it but you're about to make a new best friend.
As a Blogger / On-line Seller I know that one of the worst parts of our job is managing all those repetitive tasks that need to be done. You know the ones I mean, promoting on social media, pinning your latest post / product to Pinterest, keeping track of subscribers etc.
Finding a way to automate your business to take care of some of these tasks soon becomes pretty essential. Especially if you want to find enough hours in the day to actually enjoy a bit of life outside of work. There are loads of options out there but you soon find that most of them come with a hefty price tag.
What if I told you there was another, legitimate option out there to automate your business? One that had no time limit and was also completely free.
Sounds too good to be true? Well, for once there really is a fairy godmother out there and it's called IFTTT.
In case you're wondering - this is not an affiliate post - as far as I know there is no affiliate programme as it's a free platform - I just think it's an amazing resource that I think you should know about.
UPDATE October 2020: Sadly, as of this month the Free version of IFTTT is now limited so you can only create 3 of your own Applets before having to upgrade to a paid option. There are still tons of free options that have been created by other people so I think it's still worth a look to see how it can help you automated some of those boring tasks.
IFTTT?
IFTTT stands for
If This then That
How to Automate your business for free with IFTTT
It's a free online platform that connects together other apps and devices to automate your business. For example, you can link your Instagram and Facebook together to automatically create a new Facebook post when you post to Instagram. You can update a spreadsheet with every new post you share on your blog.
And - most excitingly for me - you can schedule all your Pins to Pinterest - forever - absolutely free, gratis, and for nothing!!!!!
Update January 2022: Pinterest no longer let you schedule pins with IFTTT.
ifttt pin
If you're wondering whether this is even allowed then you'll be pleased to know that IFTTT is fully supported by the platforms on their system. This means that Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are perfectly happy for you to use it to post onto their platforms in exactly the same way as other paid scheduling apps like Tailwind, Later, Buffer etc.
So how does it work?
IFTTT links together SERVICES (like Facebook, Wordpress, Pinterest etc) together using APPLETS. An Applet is basically a set of instructions that say IF THIS happens THEN make THAT happen.
For example: IF I post to Instagram using the hashtag #madeonthecommon THEN create a new pin on my Pinterest board "Made on the Common Instagram".
Note: No longer allowed!!
You can see this in action if you check out my Instagram account @MadeontheCommon and my Pinterest board MadeontheCommon Instagram.
The great news for people like us, is that much more techy people have created loads of these applets already, so you just need to save them to your account and then just edit the details to make them work for you.
Some examples of the services you can connect are:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Pinterest
Google Calendar
Google Drive Documents (Docs, Sheets,)
Asana
Trello
Wordpress
Blogger
Mailchimp
Sadly Etsy is not currently set up on the site
How does this help me Automate my Business?
There are 4 main areas that I've found where IFTTT can save you a whole heap of time and help you get more organised.
Automatically cross-post between social-media platforms
Schedule pins & posts ahead of time
Log events in tracking spreadsheets
Auto populate calendars
If you're wondering how this works, here are some great examples of each of these:
Automatically cross-post between platforms
Create a pin every time you post to Instagram using a specific hashtag
Share new blog posts to your Facebook page, Pinterest board or Twitter feed
Schedule posts ahead of time
Schedule pins to post to your boards in Pinterest to post when you want and to the boards you choose
Schedule Facebook page posts ahead of time (but unfortunately not Facebook Group Posts!)
Log activities in tracking spreadsheets
Track New pins added to your boards to keep track of what you've posted where
Keep a list of all new e-mail subscribers
Auto populate your calendar
Add new pin posts to a spreadsheet and automatically create Google calendar entries for each posting
Add your scheduled e-mail campaigns to Google calendar
You can even combine these together for amazing results.
I have a system set-up to schedule all my pins to my boards on Pinterest. First, I add the pins I want to schedule to a spreadsheet, get them automatically added to my Google Calendar and then have them automatically post to the boards I choose in Pinterest. I even use a repeat function to loop these pins around my boards every few weeks. It took me about an hour to schedule a couple of hundred, they'll keep posting for as long and as often as I want and - best of all- it didn't cost me a penny!
How do I get Started?
To set it up you first have to create an account with IFTTT and then allow them to access the accounts that you want to link. You can then browse the Applets already set-up, choose one to use and edit it to work for your accounts.
For a Step By Step Guide to Scheduling your first pin read the full post here
So What's Stopping You?
If you haven't already discovered IFTTT then I definitely recommend taking a bit of time to explore how it works and how it can help you automate your business. There's a bit of a learning curve to get started but once you crack it, you can rest easy knowing that those repetitive tasks are taken care of and you're free to get on with the more enjoyable parts of your business.
In the meantime, why not check out my post on lots more Free Resources for your business.
Sarah x
