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

[gietl]

Does this work for FB Fan & group? Would like to see it publish to there instead of my own personal profile.

I am using it to publish to a page I manage. It will link to your personal account but you should be able to select which page you want it posting on. Works well.

[~DS~]

Care to share? I know it link to my account which is fine but I want them posted on my fan page.

[h78509]

Does this work for FB Fan & group? Would like to see it publish to there instead of my own personal profile.

I've been trying to do just that but no luck so far. Twitter gets updated without problems but nothing is happening with Facebook. If I get both working, then I have to say that this is an awesome tutorial that everyone should use.

[Mr. Jinx]

Does this work for FB Fan & group? Would like to see it publish to there instead of my own personal profile.

It should work for fan pages. When you create a new feed, you will have to authenticate with FB. There you should see a dropdown box where you can select the page (only if you're admin).
It doesn't work for groups because of a limit in the FB api.

[h78509]

It's working like a charm!

I have to say this is an awesome service and I recommend everyone to use it.

Only downside is that it doesn't have "not-to-include" keywords. I'm getting way too many "MOVED" threads posted on Twitter and Facebook. I had this same problem with the Twitter mod as well.

[rd]

This is better then the 2by2 host mod. This actually posts the discription of your topic.

Also I think 2by2 host dude is kinda spamming >.> Im not sure but I think when someone mentioned twitterfeed in his mod thread, he complained to a moderator. Once again I'm not that sure.

I use 2by2 mod because I am forced to; it gives me theme errors when I try to uninstall it and the little link to their hosting site is annoying.

[Mr. Jinx]

I've been trying to do just that but no luck so far. Twitter gets updated without problems but nothing is happening with Facebook. If I get both working, then I have to say that this is an awesome tutorial that everyone should use.

I've updated the startpost with Facebook instructions.
It's even possible to post to FB pages. However, FB groups are not possible.

Only downside is that it doesn't have "not-to-include" keywords. I'm getting way too many "MOVED" threads posted on Twitter and Facebook. I had this same problem with the Twitter mod as well.

Seems you are not the only one who wants that Me too, and take a look at this.

I use 2by2 mod because I am forced to; it gives me theme errors when I try to uninstall it and the little link to their hosting site is annoying.

Instead of uninstalling, you could disable the mod. This will make your forum posting alot faster anyway.

[Bec]

Thanks for posting this! I did have the twitter mod installed but am giving this a go, only thing that would be nice if instead of checking for topics ever hour or so it would be nice if it was updated immediately, might send them some feedback!

[Jerry]

Very nice tutorial. Thank you. I will put it to good use.

[h78509]

Thanks for posting this! I did have the twitter mod installed but am giving this a go, only thing that would be nice if instead of checking for topics ever hour or so it would be nice if it was updated immediately, might send them some feedback!

You can change it to 30 minutes. That helps a bit.

[Legend.]

wow...thats real nice

Thanks for sharing!

[wedost.com]

Excellent.

Great Information. THank you for sharing..

Letting people know about your forum is a great way to improve traffic.
Using Twitter or Facebook you can let the world know about what's going on.

There is an easy way to automatically sent new SMF topics to your Twitter or Facebook (and even Laconica / Ping.fm / Hellotxt) account without modifying your SMF code. Just use SMF's build-in RSS capabilities and a free service like twitterfeed.com!

This is how the result looks on Twitter : http://twitter.com/chelloo_com

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.
• Finally, click on 'Create Service' and you're done!

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!

RSS Feeds
In the example I used 'http://www.yousite.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.

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
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 ech feed and add the board title to the 'Post Prefix'

[[unplugged]]

Very nice indeed. It works great, except for limiting the boards. I have checked the URL in my browser and it works fine, however when trying to add it to twitterfeed, it fails:

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


SMF2 RC2
Not using Pretty URLs mod

Any ideas?

[Mr. Jinx]

Could you post the URL you try to use?

[[unplugged]]

I've tried several.

http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?board=3;type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news  <--- works, but shows all the boards
http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;sa=news;board=3 <--- works in browser, but not in twitterfeed

I have also tried these and slight variations of them.
http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?type=rss;action=.xml;board=3
http://www.yoursite.com/forum/index.php?board=3;type=rss;action=.xml


Thank you for looking into this.

[Mr. Jinx]

Those URL's work for me. I also tried with the site in your signature.
If you are using it on another site, it might be some mod messing up your RSS feeds.

[[unplugged]]

It's for the site in my signature. Here's a screenshot of the link that works in my browser, but won't parse within twitterfeed (when clicking the "test rss feed" button).

[Mr. Jinx]

Ah, now I see your problem, board 3 is only accesable for registered users.
The RSS feeds only work on boards that are visible for guests.

[[unplugged]]

Aha! I knew it was something simple. Thank you very much for you time (and thanks for a great tutorial).

[yankeestonk]

What about spammers that get through and post porn from time to time? Can you risk losing your facebook account?