Automate Social Media Posting Using Google Calendar

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Social Media Automation with IFTTT

Managing a consistent social media posting schedule can be challenging and time-consuming. If you're looking for a simple method to easily track and automate posting, this guide will outline how to do so using Google Calendar and IFTTT. 

For this automation, you can use Google Calendar to schedule your posts via Google calendar events. When the calendar events start, posts will be automatically added to the IFTTT-supported social network of your choice. 

 

An Example calendar with Social Media updates scheduled to be posted by the Applets in this guide

Create a new calendar

To ensure your Applet only triggers for events that are part of your social media schedule, it is best to create a specific Google Calendar for these Applets to monitor. To do so:

  • Log into your Google Calendar
  • Press the + sign to the right of Other calendars

  • Next, click create new calendar
  • Name the calendar "Social Media Post schedule"
  • Save your new calendar

With your new calendar set up you're ready to create or enable Applets.

Enable Applets

If you'd prefer to enable an Applet rather than creating your own you can click any of the Applets below, then press connect.

After pressing connect, select the calendar you created in the previous step in the which calendar field and press Save:

Next, start adding content to your Google Calendar, here's how these could look:

               

  1. The name of the event, this won't be included in the Tweet the Applet will generate but can be a useful internal reference
  2. The time the event starts, which will be the time the Tweet is posted
  3. The URL, this will be included in the Tweet content
  4. The content of the Tweet to be posted
  5. The calendar the event is created on, this should be the same calendar configured in the above step

The above calendar event would generate a Tweet with the description "I'm using IFTTT to automate my social media posts!" from item 4 and the URL "ifttt.com" from item 3 when that calendar event starts:

Create your own Applets

If you'd prefer to create your own Applets using other social media services available on IFTTT, you can follow these steps:

  • Head to https://ifttt.com/create
  • Click Add to the right of "If This"
  • Search for and select the Google Calendar service, and choose the card titled Any event starts
    • Set the Which Calendar field to the Google Calendar that was created from the Create a new calendar section of this guide then press create trigger
  • Next click Add to the right of "Then That"
  • Search for and select a social media service of your choice, in this example we'll use Discord. Select the card titled Post a message to a channel then configure the fields as follows:
    • Which Channel: Choose the channel and server you'd like to post to
    • Message: Delete the default content of this field, then use the add ingredient button to add the Description and Where ingredients:

  • Click create action then follow the remaining steps to name and save your Applet

You can now start adding content to your Google Calendar, here's how these could look:

              

  1. The name of the event, this won't be included in the Discord post the Applet will generate but can be a useful internal reference
  2. The time the event starts, which will be the time the Discord message is posted
  3. The URL, this will be included in the Discord message content, IE the Where ingredient from your Applet's trigger
  4. The content of the Tweet to be posted, IE the Description ingredient from your Applet's trigger
  5. The calendar the event is created on, this should be the same calendar configured in the above step

Use AI to create your content

With IFTTT's AI services, you can take the above automation a step further and automate writing the content of your posts based on criteria you select. Similar to the above Applets, but instead of including the content of your post in the calendar event's description, a prompt for the AI can be included there. The AI will take that prompt and create content which will be used in the Applet's action.

To create an Applet using the AI queries, you can follow these steps:

  • Head to https://ifttt.com/create
  • Click Add to the right of "If This"
  • Search for and select the Google Calendar service, and choose the card titled Any event starts
    • Set the Which Calendar field to the Google Calendar that was created following the instructions from the Create a new calendar section of this guide that you'd like to monitor then press create trigger
  • Press the Plus Sign below your Applet's trigger, then press the Plus Sign to the right of Query
  • Search for and select the AI Social Creator service, and choose the card titled Generate a social media update on a topic, configure the fields as follows:
    • Platform: Twitter
    • Topic: Use the add ingredient button to add the Description ingredient from your Applet's trigger
    • Tone: Select a tone of your choice from the dropdown
    • Language: choose a language of your choice, this will default to English if left blank
    • Click Create Query
  • Next click Add to the right of "Then That"
  • Search for and select a social media service of your choice, in this example we'll use Twitter. Select the card titled Post a Tweet
  • Delete the default text from the Tweet text field, then use the Add ingredient button to add the following ingredient:
    • The content ingredient from the AI query, this will add the post content created by the AI to the Tweet
    • The Where ingredient from the Google Calendar trigger, this will add the URL from the Calendar event if one is included

  • Click create action then name and save your Applet

You can then add events to your Calendar to generate Tweets. For example:

             

  1. The name of the event, this won't be included in the Twitter post the Applet will generate but can be a useful internal reference
  2. The time the event starts, which will be the time the Tweet is posted
  3. The URL, this will be included in the Twitter message content (optional), IE the Where ingredient from your Applet's trigger
  4. The prompt that will be shared with the AI, that will be used to create the Tweet's content, IE the Description ingredient from your Applet's trigger that was used in the AI query
  5. The calendar the event is created on, this should be the same calendar configured in the above step

The above Calendar event would take the event's description (Item 4 above) "2024 Tech Trends" and the AI would create a Tweet on that topic with a funny tone which would be posted to Twitter at the events start time.

You can also enable the above Applet by clicking the image below:

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