Friday, September 11, 2015

Top 15 IFTTT Recipes to Save You Time


I recently took a webinar about Evernote and the presenter asked the audience how many people use IFTTT. I use it all the time, but I was surprised to see that most of my fellow audience members hadn't even heard about it.

Folks, if you don't know about IFTTT (https://ifttt.com), take a seat. You're going to love this!

IFTTT originally stood for IF This Then That. (They've since shortened it to just IFTTT.) It allows you to connect two applications (or an application and a product) together so they'll run seamlessly, with no additional work on your part. So, if Thing One happens, then Thing Two automatically happens.

You can use it to connect your social media accounts, to automatically alert you when snow is predicated, to send you a text when a certain person emails, etc.... The possibilities are endless!

In fact, there are so many possibilities (there are 220 apps and products that you can connect), one might find it a bit overwhelming to use at first. Never fear -- we picked the top 15 recipes that would be useful to any librarian ("Recipes" is what you make when you connect two apps/products together):

PERSONAL ASSISTANT

Keep track of receipts, invoices, and orders with these two options!
IFTTT Recipe: Add receipts, orders, & invoices to a GDrive Spreadsheet connects gmail to google-drive

IFTTT Recipe: Save Receipts to Evernote connects do-camera to evernote

Who is going to come to your program if snow is on its way?
IFTTT Recipe: It is going to snow email connects weather to email

Order something important for your program? Get shipping updates on your phone.
IFTTT Recipe: Get push notification for shipping status updates. connects boxoh-package-tracking to if-notifications

Keeping track of Reference Interviews, interlibrary loans, people using computers? Here's a fun one.
IFTTT Recipe: Keeping tally on anything connects do-button to google-drive

STREAMLINING SOCIAL MEDIA

You can connect most of your social media networks together, but be careful. You wouldn't use Twitter hashtags on Facebook and you wouldn't post as often on Facebook as you would Twitter. So, pay attention to the best uses of each social network and connect appropriately.
IFTTT Recipe: Post your Instagrams to Tumblr connects instagram to tumblr

Plan out your tweets on a shared Google Calendar!
IFTTT Recipe: Tweet from Google Calendar connects google-calendar to twitter

I wouldn't send all your Instagram photos to Facebook, but the ones you want, just include a special hashtag on Instagram and it'll immediately appear on Facebook!
IFTTT Recipe: Your Instagram Photo with specific tag to Facebook Page as native photo with custom message. connects instagram to facebook-pages

Make your library's blog posts go social on all accounts (make a recipe for each of your social networks) as soon as you hit send!
IFTTT Recipe: New entries to an RSS will be automatically tweeted connects feed to twitter

Upload photos only once and it'll appear on all social networks!
IFTTT Recipe: Automatically add your new Flickr uploads to a Facebook album connects flickr to facebook

One profile picture for all, uploaded just once...
IFTTT Recipe: Keep your profile pictures in sync connects facebook to twitter

FINDING NEW PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Easily people who are tweeting with local hashtags (like your city) with this recipe -- it puts all users onto a list (which can be public or private) and you can easily reply, like or retweet local patrons WITHOUT following them.
IFTTT Recipe: Create Twitter lists around a hashtag connects twitter to twitter

What are your patrons posting on Instagram? Find out with this useful daily digest!
IFTTT Recipe: Neighborhood watch! Email me a daily digest of Instagrams posted in my area connects instagram to email-digest

FUN ONES

You can make a recipe for Android or IOS!
IFTTT Recipe: Lost your phone? Text it 'lostphone' to turn up ringer volume! connects android-sms to android-device

Does your SO never know when you're heading home because you leave at different times? This recipe is for you:
IFTTT Recipe: Send an 'I'm on my way!' text when you leave work connects android-location to android-sms

So, we hope you'll find some of these recipes useful and will become comfortable with using this program to make some of your own recipes. If you use any others, please share the URL in the comments so other readers may also benefit from your great find!

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Hi PW, you can email me at jess [at] 5minlib.com. You can also DM me on Twitter @5minlib. I look forward to hearing from you!

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  2. I wish there was an IFTTT that went from Facebook to Instagram. I know that you included Instagram to Facebook but I have not seen one the other way. Am I just missing it?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Patty, no you aren't missing it. Instagram's terms of use does not allow 3rd party apps to store usernames and passwords, so IFTTT can't automatically post for you. (This is the only social media network that has this restriction...) Your best option will be posting on IG and having it redirect to Facebook... If you are hoping to use a computer (and not a phone) to upload images onto IG, I use Gramblr (http://gramblr.com/uploader/) all the time for that. You need to have the image the correct size, but it's nice to be able to use a fancy camera. You can also use something like Latergramme (https://www.latergram.me/) to schedule your posts, though since they can't post for you, all they will do is keep it in draft mode and send you a reminder to make them live. Good luck!

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