posting from google+ to other services with ifttt

I’ve been using If This Then That (best part? it’s free!) for several months, and wanted to share a simple way to post updates from Google+ (or any RSS feed, but I digress) to your other social media services.

Currently I only use Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook – though I am sure this basic process will work for any other ifttt-supported social media service which you can access in a write form (they call them channels).

There’s a way to use email to post updates to Facebook and Twitter, but I kinda like the ifttt method more – it’s more intuitive to me.

Here’s the basic method (or you can use the recipe I shared that does this):

1. login/authorize GPlusRSS with your Google account
2. copy the RSS feed GPlusRSS gives you of your G+ public posts
3. login to ifttt and enable/authorize (if you haven’t previously) the channel for the social media service you want to post to (I’m using Twitter for this example)
4. create a new recipe
   1. click “this”
   2. click “Feed” (at this point you can post everything or you can post some things – I’m going to go the some route here)
   3. click “New feed item matches”
   4. in “Keyword or simple phrase”, enter something unique-ish (I use “#twt”)
   5. in “Feed URL”, paste the URL GPlusRSS gave you at parent step 2
   6. click “Create Trigger”
   7. click “that”
   8. click the social media channel you chose in parent step 3
   9. click “Post a tweet”
   10. click “Create Action”
   11. in “Description”, give it a good name, such as “post G+ updates to Twitter if tagged #twt”
   12. click “Create Recipe”
5. done

If Google+ ever decides to open their API better, ifttt should be able to have a channel for them.

Until then, the above method works like a champ – I use similar recipes for cross-posting to LinkedIn and Facebook from Google+ along with Twitter.