As you can post new topics from WordPress to Twitter and Facebook using your RSS feed, it’s a bit different for SMF because using the default RSS feed will not post new topics, but replies to topics. I was using SA Facebook plugin to accomplish this on my SMF forum but for some unknown reasons, the mod always stopped working after a while. There’s also a paid mod by SMFHacks for this but why pay for something you can easily do all by yourself?
Posting New Topics to Facebook
If you’ve been using RSS Graffiti before now, you’ll understand how this works but if you’ve never heard of it, it’s a Facebook application that publishes RSS feeds from any source to your Facebook personal profile, fan page or group. What you first need to do is to craft your RSS the way you want the posts to be published.
– Take a close look at the RSS feed below:
This feed displays the latest 20 topics (not replies) from 9jaclub.com and you must replace www.9jaclub.com with your own forum address. To confirm you got the first step right, launch the address to see if your feed will be properly displayed
– Search for RSS Graffiti on Facebook go here directly
– Grant the application the required permission if it asks for it.
– Click on Add New Publishing Plan
– Give it a name you want and proceed
– Add a new source amd enter your URL to your RSS feed in the requires space
– Depending on how you want the thing to work, you can configure the source the way you want or check out the sample below:
– Now click on Add New Target and select the page or profile you want the new topics to appear. You may select the Standard post type.
As you can see above, all my Facebook fan pages and groups (which I administrate) are listed, including my personal profile. Each publishing plan allows you to add multiple sources but a single target. You can create as many publishing plans as you like targeting different pages and profiles.
– Important: Do not forget to turn publishing on with the button at the middle.
With this set right,. each new topic created in your forum would be automatically posted to your profile, fan page or group depending on the publishing plans you’ve configured.
Auto Publishing New Topics from SMF to Twitter
This can be done using Feedburner but I bet you didn’t know.
– Log in to your feedburner account or create a new one here using your Google account
– As soon as you’re logged in, locate where to burn a feed and paste the feed URL you used for RSS Graffiti up there
– Hit the Next button and give your feed a title and address you can easily remember (but not necessary)
– Hit the Next button and procedd. You should now notified that your feed has been burned.
– Just keep hitting the Next button till it’s all done
– When it’s all done, click the Publicize tab, then select Socialize from the links on the left
– On the next page, you’ll be asked to add a twitter account. Authorize the Feedburner app to access your Twitter account and that’s it! New forum posts will now be automatically tweeted using the profile you added in Feedburner.
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