Customizing SMF > Tips and Tricks
SMF forum posts to Twitter / Facebook (without mods/coding!)
Mr. Jinx:
Twitter and Facebook are very populair platforms to spread the news. Wouldn't it be great if you could publish new forum topics to this platform? This way people can subscribe to your forum's Twitter / Facebook page so they always know what is going on. It might even get you new visitors and improve traffic to your site.
This tutorial will show you how to automatically sent new SMF topics to your Twitter or Facebook account without modifying your SMF code.
* Compatible with all SMF 1.x and SMF 2.x versions
* Unlike other mods, doesn't need any installation or code change
* Keeps working even if you upgrade your forum
* Completely free without anoying copyrights
Example: http://twitter.com/chelloo_com
All tweets you see there are new SMF topics, automatically imported by twitterfeed.
INDEX
1. How to setup an SMF Feed to Twitter
2. How to setup an SMF Feed to Facebook
3. RSS Feeds examples
4. Other Idea's
1. How to setup an SMF Feed to Twitter
* If you don't already have it, open an account on Twitter.com
* Next open a free account on Twitterfeed.com
Note: This tutorial is about Twitterfeed, but users have reported other services that might be worth looking at: dlvr.it or twitterlive
* Click on 'create new feed':
Feed Name = Whatever you like
RSS Feed URL = http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news
* Click on 'Advanced Settings':
I've set the posting frequency to every hour with a maximum of 5 posts.
Don't worry that you are going to miss posts. It will catch up every hour.
Post Content = title only (that should be enough for now)
* Continue to step 2:
Select 'Twitter'
* In the last step you need to authenticate with Twitter:
You don't need to worry about security. Twitterfeed.com is a well known free service and uses 'oauth'. You give the application the rights to post twitters without giving them your password.
I recommend that you remove the UTM tags (twitterfeed / twitter) because this is not needed
* Finally, click on 'Create Service' and you're done!
2. How to setup an SMF Feed to Facebook
* If you don't already have it, open an account on Facebook.com
* Next open a free account on Twitterfeed.com
* Click on 'create new feed':
Feed Name = Whatever you like
RSS Feed URL = http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news
* Click on 'Advanced Settings':
I've set the posting frequency to every hour with a maximum of 5 posts.
Don't worry that you are going to miss posts. It will catch up every hour.
Post Content = title only (that should be enough for now)
* Continue to step 2:
Select 'Facebook'
* In the last step you need to authenticate with Facebook:
You don't need to worry about security. Twitterfeed.com is a well known free service. You give the twitterfeed application the rights to post to facebook using the facebook api without giving them your password.
* On this page, once authenticated, you can also choose on which page you want to publish your SMF feed. You can publish on you own wall, but you can also publish on pages you created, or where you are administrator. It's not possible to publish a feed to a group.
* Finally, click on 'Create Service' and you're done!
3. RSS Feeds examplesIn the example I used 'http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news'
This feed will publish all new topics.
However you are free to customize this. The are lots of options you can use to format a RSS Feed.
note: Only use RSS feeds that are public. If you have a board that requires you to login to read topics the feed won't work because twitterfeed can't login.
Examples:
index.php?type=rss;action=.xml
This will publish all new topics and replies
index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news;boards=10
This will publish all new topics from board 10 only
index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news;boards=10,12,15
This will publish all new topics from board 10, 12 and 15 only
index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=members
This will publish all new members.
Using the Post Prefix and Suffix in the advanced section on Twitterfeed you can make messages like "Welcome on our forum, username !
More RSS Feed options
4. Other Idea'sthnx Paracelsus for this tip!
If you want to include the boardname in every feed, that's possible.
First, you have to setup a seperate feed for each board using for example:
index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news;boards=10
Next, go to the advanced setting of each feed and add the board title to the 'Post Prefix'
Dzonny:
Thanks for the tip.
Moved to Tips and Tricks board, as requested.
Joker™:
awesome tip ...... started using it also :D
thanx for the tute
Paracelsus:
Good tip that I've actually been using for a while now.
What I usually do is to create a different feed on Twitterfeed for different board(s) and for each of them I have a unique prefix so that it looks more 'targeted' on Twitter (you can take a look at it at http://twitter.com/forumscp)
Charles52:
Awesome, I'm definitely gonna have to do this.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version