IFTTT, If This Then That, is ‘a free platform that lets you do more with all your apps and devices’. IFTTT is at its core an automation platform that can automate and connect services from Twitter to your Phillips Hue lights to spreadsheets. For examples, you can create an applet to sync your Amazon Alexa to-dos with your iOS reminders.
So how does it work?
Creating an IFTTT account is simple. Once you create an account you can begin connecting numerous platforms and accounts to begin automating processes. Once you create an account, browse to search services to connect and pre-made ‘applets’ to run.
So, what is an ‘applet’?
An applet is a recipe for the automation you want to create; this is where the ‘if this then that’ comes in. There are many of these pre-made applets ready for you to enable when you login and create an account.
You can also easily create your own applets to run in IFTTT along with preset ones.
Click ‘new applet’ to create your own. For instance, maybe you want to receive a text message when you get a new follower on twitter. First, select ‘this’ and you will be prompted with a list of available services. Once you choose the service you will see all available options to trigger the automation. For our example, we will select Twitter as the service, and the option for the trigger is ‘new follower’. Next, you will select the ‘that’ for the equation. You will again be prompted to select a service from the available list and select a ‘that’ action. We will select ‘SMS’ and select the action ‘send me an SMS’. In this example, we can also select what information from twitter we want to be included in that text message, such as follower count of our new follower, full name, website link in their bio, etc. The final step is to review and finish your applet, which lets you select if you would like to be notified when the applet runs.
Next, you will select the ‘that’ for the equation. You will again be prompted to select a service from the available list and select a ‘that’ action. We will select ‘SMS’ and select the action ‘send me an SMS’. In this example, we can also select what information from twitter we want to be included in that text message, such as follower count of our new follower, full name, website link in their bio, etc.
The final step is to review and finish your applet, which lets you select if you would like to be notified when the applet runs.
So why not use this awesome automation tool to monitor your personal brand?
Here are some pre-made applets to use to monitor your personal brand online:
Keep your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures in sync
By keeping your profile images in sync, your profiles and image are easily recognizable and send a clear and consistent professional message. Check out this blog post from our personal branding series to learn more about
Similarly to keeping your Facebook and Twitter profiles in sync, you can keep your Google account and Google+ profile photos in sync as well with another applet.
Create a spreadsheet for every time your name is mentioned on Twitter
It is extremely important to monitor if, and how, people are talking about you on twitter. This applet creates a spreadsheet to easily view details from when someone has mentioned your name on twitter. It pulls the relevant info such as time and date, username of the person who mentioned you, the text of the tweet, and a link to the tweet.
Archive every tweet you post to a spreadsheet
You can use this applet to see all your tweets in one spreadsheet. Keeping track of what content you posted, and when, is extremely helpful to monitor the health of your personal brand. Can’t remember if you’ve told your twitter followers about an event that you’re partaking in? Can’t remember if you tweeted that joke before? This applet will allow you to easily search tweets so you don’t create duplicate content on accident and allows you to easily access all your content.
Archive every link you tweet to a google spreadsheet
Like keeping track of what you tweet in general, you can also use an applet to specifically keep track of what links you’re sharing.
Post your tweets to Facebook when you use a specific hashtag
Want to quickly share something you tweet to Facebook? This applet will post your tweet to Facebook if it includes a specific hashtag, which you can configure to be whatever you like. The hashtag will be stripped out and not posted, as to not alert the world to your automation tricks.
Back up photos you’re tagged in on Facebook to an IOS photos album
This applet allows you to easily keep track of any photos you are tagged in on Facebook and store them all locally in a folder on your phone. Keeping track of visual assets such as photos is important to knowing how your personal brand is represented visually.
Get alerts if your name or company name is mentioned in the New York Times
This applet allows you to enter a keyword, such as your name or company name, and receive an email and an app alert letting you know that an article has been published mentioning that keyword.
Check out these applets for IFTTT and let us know what you think. Create an awesome applet that is great to monitor the health of your personal brand online? Tweet us and let us know, we’d love to use it too!
Want more info on personal branding strategy? Check out our blog post series, how to build a personal branding strategy. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter, The Personal Brand Lab.
Kylee Schmuck, Digital Marketing Specialist at Delightful Communications