Written for the Occupancy Marketing blog

Sometimes hotel life can be a bit hectic and marketing teams never get as much time as they need to keep on top of their online presence; this post is just a little taster of a site called “If This Then That” https://ifttt.com/ that we think has its uses in hotels. The premise of IFTTT is to connect two different websites together – whether it be Facebook, Twitter, your Google calendar, your blog or the BBC weather site – and use the output from one to do something in the other in an automated manner. In most cases it’s very easy to set up and it can be a very powerful time-saver. Here are a few of our favourite If This Then That recipes:

 

1. Share an Instagram photo and caption to Twitter

This can be a great help in taking your Instagram images to a wider audience by automatically re-posting them on Twitter. Firstly it provides you with a quick way to reuse content but it also opens up your Instagram images to more users, hopefully encouraging some to follow you on Instagram. (You can do the same thing on Facebook too, but we recommend a bit more caution here as Facebook users can get tired of repeat content more easily. https://ifttt.com/recipes/12910-instagram-to-facebook-fan-page) It should be pointed out that there are also sharing tools built in to Instagram but if you’re short on time then IFTTT may be what you need.

 

2. Add all of your tweets to a Google spreadsheet

Look back on your tweets without ever needing to scroll through your Twitter timeline by saving them directly to a Google Drive spreadsheet. It is increasingly common to need to annotate and report on your Twitter activity and having a record of past tweets is a great start.

 

3. A Google Calendar view of your Buffer schedule

If you use Buffer to post to manage and schedule posts to your social media profiles and don’t want to have to rewrite your upcoming schedule then this recipe allows you to create a visual view of your editorial calendar by posting it straight to Google Calendar.

 

4. Rotate images on your hotel reception computer using your (or your guest’s) Instagram images

Keep your reception team in touch with the photos that are being taken in and around the hotel using Instagram, IFTTT and Dropbox – it’s slightly more complicated than a typical recipe but it can really help the reception team feel connected to the hotel’s online presence.

 

5. Automatically wish people happy birthday on Facebook

I know, I know – nothing says care and friendship like an automated tool to wish someone happy birthday… but you thought it was enough to set up IFTTT, right?!

One last thing to remember – you can have multiple recipes running at once. The best thing to do is give to a go – sign up to IFTTT https://ifttt.com/, authorise your different websites and see what recipes might work to connect them.

Have fun!