Learn how auto-sharing to Instagram using Zapier saves time, enhances engagement, and delivers value added blog content to your followers.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, content creators, solopreneurs, and other digital nomads must optimize their workflows to expand their online presence efficiently. Among the many tasks that demand our attention, sharing content across social media platforms is both vital and time-consuming. When it comes to harnessing the visual power of Instagram, sharing your blog posts can boost engagement, provide value added content to your followers, and drive traffic to your website.
Integrating automation for blog post sharing can foster engagement and save time. In our continuing series of How We Do It posts, this article delves into one solution I developed for auto-sharing WordPress blog posts to Instagram. With a little bit of time spent up front, you’ll significantly lighten your ongoing social media workload.
The Power of Automation in Your Social Media Strategy
Imagine all your latest blog posts automatically popping up on your Instagram feed. Without manually sharing each post, you’ll share the featured images and deliver content to your followers while attract views, likes, and comments. And, for those interested in learning more you provide a direct link to the blog post. All without any manual intervention. With the time you may have spent sharing these posts, you can instead focus on creating more content or addressing other needs in your business. This isn’t just a dream. It’s a practical reality thanks to automation.
Automating social media tasks, like sharing blog content to Instagram, ensures consistency with your online presence. However, it also amplifies your reach with minimal effort. With tools like IFTTT, Buffer and other social media management platforms, you’d think it might easier to auto-share blog posts to Instagram. To take advantage of free apps, I discovered a perfect mix of magic for this seamless integration.
To share all The RV Entrepreneur News blog posts to our RVE Instagram feed, we’re now using the Zapier “Publish Photo in Instagram for Business” integration.
The Tools for Successful Auto-sharing
Before diving into the setup process, let’s outline the essential tools you’ll need:
- A self-hosted WordPress blog for full plugin compatibility and customization.
- The Yoast SEO plugin, which enhances your site’s SEO and provides the necessary Open Graph (Og) Image Url for sharing.
- A Zapier account, which acts as the bridge between your WordPress site and Instagram, automating the sharing process.
- An Instagram for Business account, required for Zapier integration.
Crafting the Perfect Zap
Step 1: Prepare Your WordPress Blog
The first step involves installing two crucial plugins on your WordPress site: Yoast and Zapier. Yoast SEO will optimize your site’s content for search engines and manage social media sharing details like the Og Image Url. The Zapier for WordPress plugin creates a seamless connection between your WordPress content and numerous other apps, including Instagram.
Step 2: Setting Up Zapier
After setting up your WordPress site, the next move is to create a Zapier account. Choose between the free and paid plans based on your needs. Once your account is ready, search for the “Publish Photo in Instagram for Business” integration, which is your ticket to automating the sharing process.
The steps I describe here are available using a free Zapier account. With a paid plan, you have even better customization options for the content you auto-share to Instagram.
Step 3: Configuring Your Zap
The configuration process is straightforward but requires attention to detail. Here’s a breakdown.
Publish Photo in Instagram for Business
- Trigger Setup: Choose “New Post In WordPress” as the trigger. This ensures that every new post initiates the sharing process.
- App: WordPress
- Event: New Post
- Action Step Details: Connect your Instagram account and configure the action step as follows:
- For the photo, select the “Yoast Head Json Og Image Url” from your WordPress content, which Zapier can pull directly thanks to the Yoast plugin.
- Use the “Title Rendered” field for the caption to automatically include your blog post’s title.*
- Select “Tagged Users” to automatically tag post authors or other collaborators in all the photos you share.
- Incorporate the “Link Field” to include the blog post link and the “Yoast Head Json Author” field to credit the author.
- NOTE: Since Instagram does not allow clickable links in post captions, advise your followers to find the blog link in your bio, adding a phrase like “Get RVE News Blog link in bio” to guide them.
*NOTE: To auto-share your blog post’s meta description as the photo caption instead of the title, you may need to upgrade your Zapier Account. This will provide access to advanced features for stripping the HTML code passed to Instagram.
Addressing Instagram’s Link Limitation
A notable challenge with Instagram is its restriction on clickable links in post captions. Our workaround involves prompting followers to visit the link in our bio, a common practice that efficiently directs traffic to your website.
Why not use Buffer?
Have you noticed how we automate sharing of all our News blog posts to The RV Entrepreneur Facebook Page and the RVE Community Group using Buffer? If so, you may be wondering why we don’t use Buffer for auto-sharing to Instagram. Well, we use the WP to Buffer plugin for this. And, we’re all about saving money for the solopreneur. The Pro version of the plugin is required to unlock that feature.
The Takeaway: A Tailored Approach to Social Media Efficiency
While there are various methods for auto-sharing blog posts to Instagram, our free solution using Yoast, Zapier, and the Instagram for Business integration works best for us. This strategy took some time to set up, but greatly simplifies social media management. It also saves me lots of time spent on mundane sharing tasks each week. Fellow entrepreneurs can also leverage this automation to enhance online engagement without additional effort, at no cost.
Fair Warning: As I mentioned in my recent podcast episode about automating processes (RVE #328), not all automations are perfect. This is not always a set it and forget it scenario. Be sure to frequently check your Instagram account for the blog shares. You may need to troubleshoot any Zap failures, and should always engage with your followers.
By sharing How We Do It, we hope to inspire you to explore automated solutions that align with your digital strategy. Free up valuable time so you can focus on what you do best: creating compelling content. Finally, remember: In the digital realm, working smarter, not harder, is the key to sustainable success.
Recommended RVE Podcast Listening:
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