New Network That Connects All Platforms Together
By Brian Martin
Web Coordinator
When it comes to one’s social media channels, it can be hard to manage all of them individually. Each channel requires its own management to ensure users upload the content they wish their friends or followers to see.
It can be painstakingly tiresome to have to manually upload certain posts in their corresponding platforms. Luckily, there is now a solution to this problem called If This Then That (IFTTT).
IFTTT is a mobile app that helps users link their different social media accounts together. This helps users maintain a level of consistency across their online platforms.
“We use IFTTT as a seamless way to integrate multiple platforms, cutting down on the workload,” said Kyle Gladney, adjunct professor, who is familiar with the platform. “So, you only have to make a single post on a specific platform and it will share across to any platform you select. For social media post you’ll save a lot of time by using IFTTT. You’ll also have a level of consistency across all of your platforms.”
How the app functions is that there are different link options, called Applets, which help to link various social media accounts together. For example, if someone wants a post they made on Facebook to go on Twitter, they can either find an Applet that fulfills that desire or create their own to help see that through.
The app’s functions also move beyond linking social media accounts together. It also has unique functions for certain platforms, such as Spotify and YouTube. For example, in Spotify, utilizing IFTTT, users can create an archive of their Discover Weekly playlist songs so that the songs they had that week do not disappear into obscurity.
With its simple yet sophisticated function, IFTTT has applications that can aid businesses in the long run.
“For business, for marketing, your cutting the load down, now you only have to login to one site,” said Gladney. “Create your posts, reschedule your posts and it will share to all your social media platforms that you choose. Something that used to take your designer an hour and a half to do for a single post, might now take him 15-20 minutes.”
There is also an IFTTT Platform program. With this, businesses can use statistics to see how well they are performing among the different social networks and other online resources they utilize to create their own applets in the process.
“You can add or make your own [applet], as long as the platform you are trying to use integrates with IFTTT,” said Gladney. “You could say, ‘Hey, every time I post on a Thursday, I want it to do this,’ or you could be very specific. You don’t have to just choose the cut-and-dry ones they provide.”
With IFTTT, social media users no longer have to individually manage each of their online accounts.
