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SMF forum posts to Twitter / Facebook (without mods/coding!)

Started by Mr. Jinx, January 15, 2010, 10:10:01 AM

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Dharshan

will this post feeds from my hidden boards as well? I have an Admin board hidden from public. will it pull those feeds?
R I P  : Steve Jobs | you made the world today look how it is | Thank you

KensonPlays

it shouldn't, although i told it to pull all, and another for just Announcements. i hope not!

Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail

You can choose which board you want and you don't want. But basically, all boards where guest have no access will not be posted. You can see the samples on how to post selected boards only.
Quote from: Mr. Jinx on January 15, 2010, 10:10:01 AM
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

Dharshan

Quote from: Kcmartz on October 15, 2010, 03:39:50 PM
it shouldn't, although i told it to pull all, and another for just Announcements. i hope not!

thanks.  :D
R I P  : Steve Jobs | you made the world today look how it is | Thank you

xpubstargamingx

TwittterFeed has been amazing, but for some reason it hasn't updated in over 14 hours. Normally it does every 30 minutes.

Mr. Jinx

It's now possible to exclude posts by using keywords.
For example, if you don't want to send topics starting with "MOVED: bla bla", you can enter an exclusion in twitterfeed like '--MOVED:'

http://blog.twitterfeed.com/post/1347203304/feature-friday-2-and-a-new-way-to-reach-support


Mr. Jinx

Nice to hear :)
Ps : just to be sure, I am in no way related to twitterfeed.

Dharshan

Quote from: Mr. Jinx on October 20, 2010, 02:21:14 AM
Nice to hear :)
Ps : just to be sure, I am in no way related to twitterfeed.

roger that... :), thanks for sharing
R I P  : Steve Jobs | you made the world today look how it is | Thank you

TheMortician4

Quote from: Mr. Jinx on January 15, 2010, 10:10:01 AM
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
  • 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 examples

In 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's

thnx 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'

This is the error I get when I go to page #2

Feedurl We couldn't parse this feed, please check URL and/or feed content are valid


Mr. Jinx

QuoteThis is the error I get when I go to page #2

Feedurl We couldn't parse this feed, please check URL and/or feed content are valid
What url are you using? That would help.

Ps: you shouldn't quote the complete startpost.

TheMortician4

Well, I tried to feed the forum: http://www.bbiclan.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0 which is just a simple General Websites Announcement Forum. I have yet to figure out how to get the system to take the latest news, or to create the latest news, and feed that. So I figured I would start off simple and just try to feed the forum that is a general announcement forum. I wanted to feed these to Facebook, but the URL above kept failing...


I am lost...

Oya

that isn't the right url  you have to give a rss feed url instead

but in your case guests can't get to the forum anyway so it won't work

if you did have guest access the url would be http://www.bbiclan.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss;sa=news;board=1

TheMortician4

I tried that. I gave access to guest in the form through the admin panel, I then tried that line using the correct board #, and received an error...


That's where I became even more lost than I was to start with...

TheMortician4

Import Failed
We couldn't find a feed using the URL you provided.


This is the message I received even trying to use the same feed you gave me to the notes in facebook. The forum is open to guests according to the admin panel.

Oya

nope that board still isn't open to guests

go to that link, it asks you to log in!

sdkid

For me, the RSS feed was accepted just fine.  It just would NOT post to the page I created.

So now I have an hour and a half invested in this damned thing.  Following the support forums for this little service, I found a lot of people with the same issue as me.  One suggestion was to essentially say p|ss on twitterfeed--- try http://dlvr.it

I did.

Literally 5 minutes later, I have an rss feed from my site to a FB page for my site.   :)


chinaren

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