Connecting Your Digital Music Kingdom With IFTTT
One of my big goals this year at Hypebot is to take closer looks at more services that either combine features typically offered separately or that connect separate services through one dashboard. IfThisThenThat (IFTTT) is an increasingly popular form of the latter that allows you to automate such processes as: "If I post a new video to YouTube then a WordPress post is automatically created on my blog." Given the array of web and mobile services indie musicians and those who work with them now use, a tool like IFTTT can be invaluable.
I first checked out IFTTT fairly soon after it launched but found it a bit glitchy at that stage of development. Since then more and more people have been using it and saying good things so it seems to have settled in, improved and grown.
Channel – Basic building block such as Facebook, Evernote, Email
Trigger aka "This" – The initial thing that happens involving a channel such as "I check in on Foursquare."
Action aka "That" – The response to the Trigger which usually involves another channel such as "create a status message on Facebook."
Recipe – A Trigger/Action combo that comes in two forms:
Personal Recipe: "If I check in on my Foursquare account then create a status message on my Facebook account."
Shared Recipe: "Create a Facebook status message when you check in on Foursquare."
Recently the Shared Recipes have been getting a lot of attention and you can see why. Not only do they give you a ready to grab template for a particular action but they're also an excellent brainstorming tool for ways to use IFTTT.
79 Channels and Counting
Currently there are 79 Channels with a number of services directly relevant to music marketing including Facebook Pages, Instagram, SoundCloud, WordPress and YouTube.
The IFTTT Blog shared some recipes for music lovers with a focus on music fans.
And ManageWP discussed using IFTTT with WordPress with a basic intro and a number of example recipes.
Note that if you're the first to create a recipe, there seems to be a way to get credit. So go get your name up, if that's your thing, and come back and let us know in the comments.
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is currently relaunching All World Dance. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Great tip!