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Automatically Retweet and Share Your Giveaway Posts to Twitter and Facebook

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 |

You're probably wondering, "Is this post about HootSuite or another Social Media Management Program?". No. This post is not about HootSuite, SocialSprout, Sendible or the like.


I have heard many Review and Giveaway Bloggers ask, "Is there a better solution to schedule tweets and Facebook posts that doesn't cost anything?" ...and quite frankly I have asked the same question, because well, I have been using a free HootSuite account to automate my tweets and Facebook shares for giveaway promotions, and scheduling individual posts is time-consuming, monotonous and it's getting annoying! This post will be invaluable if you host tons of giveaways and need to find a better solution to automated social sharing! So without further adieu....


How to automatically retweet and re-post giveaways to Facebook and Twitter


Firstly, I would like to start out by saying...this tutorial for automated social sharing, can only be used if you are a Wordpress user. (Sorry, my Blogger using buds! You will have to stick with HootSuite unless you switch to Wordpress.)


Okay, now let's get this party started, shall we?


Step 1: Get the Tweetily Wordpress Plugin by Flavio Martins. You can either download the plugin and upload it to your Wordpress blog by clicking Plugins >> Add New >> Upload -OR- you can install it from the Wordpress Plugin Library by clicking Plugins >> Add New >> Use the search form to search "Tweetily" >> Then click Install. Now that you've got that installed let's move to step numero dos.


Step 2: Click on Tweetily in your admin sidebar to update the settings. This is the fun part...tailoring your Tweetily to fit your needs! Here are a couple of screenshots for you, as well as a list of options and how I tailored them so you have an idea:


How to automatically retweet and re-post giveaways to Facebook and Twitter Screenshot 1


The first thing you'll need to do is sign-in with Twitter and authorize Tweetily.


Now here is a run down of the options you can customize:


Tweet Content: Options include: Post Title Only • Post Body Only • Post Body and Title


Additional Text: You can add additional text to each tweet, and since I will only be automating my giveaway posts I added "Enter to #win here →"


Additional Text Location: Options include: Beginning of Tweet • End of Tweet (I chose end of tweet because I want to include a link ... and the link will be added at the end of my tweets.)


Include Link: Well, duh! Ha ha! Here's the cool part ... you can use a URL Shortener (not pictured).  If you select this as an option you can use your URL shortener account within Tweetily. I use bit.ly, so all I needed to do was enter my bit.ly username and grab the API Key from my account to authorize Tweetily to use my bit.ly account to shorten the links in my tweets.


Hashtags: Options include: No hashtags • Use common hashtags • Use post categories as hashtags • Use post tags as categories (I chose use post categories because my category will be "Giveaways" and that is the hashtag I want to use in my tweets.)


How to automatically retweet and re-post giveaways to Facebook and Twitter Screenshot 2


Time Between Tweets: You set the time in hours, between each random tweet from Tweetily.


Random Time Added: Still not quite sure what this means, so I left it at the default of 4 hours. I will probably leave as is or adjust as needed.


Minimum Age of Post: This allows you to set how old the post should be when Tweetily will START tweeting it. I used "2" days because my posts are automatically tweeted and posted to Facebook as soon as the post is published, but you can set to "0" and it will include the day your post is published.


Maximum Age of Post: This allows you to set how old the post should be when Tweetily will STOP tweeting it. I used "30" days because most giveaways are 2 weeks to a month. (I know you are asking, "But I don't want it to tweet the giveaway if it's over!!" - I will get to that shortly.)


Enable Logging: I haven't been able to find the log yet, ha ha, but when I do I will be able to see what tweets were tweeted and when. (I figured for now I will just check my Twitter account.)


Number of Tweets: Set how many tweets you want to send at one time. I entered "1" because I only want to tweet one at a time. If you choose to tweet more, it is recommended that you tweet no more than 10 at a time.


Selected Post Type: Options include: Only Posts • Only Pages • Both Post and Pages. I don't want to tweet my pages so I selected "Only Posts".


Now to the tricky part... In order to tweet JUST your giveaways, you need to exclude all categories under the Exclude Categories section EXCEPT your giveaway category. In my case, my giveaways are, naturally, in the category "Giveaways". So I excluded all categories except "Giveaways". That's not too tricky! Here's where it gets tricky...


If your giveaway post has ANOTHER category attached to it, Tweetily will exclude it, even though you have left the giveaway category unchecked. For example, one of my giveaways was also in the category "Products I Love" and since I had excluded that category, Tweetily excluded the post as well. So here are your options: either un-check the other categories attached to your giveaway posts so Tweetily doesn't exclude those posts -OR- go into your posts page, filter the posts to show only giveaway posts and then use the quick edit feature to remove all other categories (You might consider using the other categories as tags instead).


I chose the latter because I have other posts (not just giveaway posts) attached to those categories and I only want Tweetily to tweet giveaway posts.


Okay, moving on...


How to automatically retweet and re-post giveaways to Facebook and Twitter Screenshot 3


Step 3: Now that you have all the settings configured, click "Update Tweetily Options". You can either wait until your next random Tweetily tweet, or you can "Tweet Now!". I was too excited to wait, so I tweeted now! Check out my tweet:




Awesome right?

Step 4: So now let's talk about how to exclude a particular post once the giveaway has ended, if it has ended sooner than the set maximum age when Tweetily should stop tweeting.

You can do this two different ways: 1. You can click on "Exclude Specific Posts" (link located at the bottom of your Tweetily Admin Page) and place a check mark next to that post after it has ended. -OR- 2. You can go to your posts page and filter your posts to show only your giveaway posts and then use the quick edit feature to change the category from "Giveaways" to another category.

I will be doing the latter because this is something I already do! When one of my giveaways ends, I change the category to "Giveaways Ended" ... this way when folks are using the "Find Giveaways" link in my navigation bar they only see LIVE giveaways.

That's it for Tweetily! So now your wondering, "How does this help me with Facebook posts?". Check out the next step...

Step 5: Log into your Twitter account, and click Settings from the "gear" icon at the top right, then click Profiles  in the side menu. Scroll until you see Connect to Facebook. Go ahead and connect with Facebook. Once you are connected, uncheck "Post retweets to Facebook" and "Post to my Facebook Profile" because if you are like me, you don't want your tweets on your personal Facebook page, especially if your Twitter account is for your blog only! Now then... Click "Allow posting to one of your pages" and select your Facebook page (if you have more than one, make sure you select the right one!).

That's it you're done! Now Tweetily will randomly tweet your Giveaway posts and Twitter will post your tweets to your Facebook page. How cool is that?? No more scheduling posts over and over and over and OVER again. BUT there's just one but ... don't ditch your HootSuite, Sendible or SocialSprout account just yet! Occasionally, you might have a giveaway sponsor that wants social sharing more frequently than others. In those cases you will still need to schedule some of your tweets and Facebook shares to accommodate their requests.

I hope you enjoyed this priceless post! I would love to hear your thoughts, so drop me a line below. Have a great day everyone!

↓ Don't forget to share it with all your bloggy friends! ↓

11 Responses to “Automatically Retweet and Share Your Giveaway Posts to Twitter and Facebook”

  1. Thank you for sharing this! ...running to WP admin to install plugin...

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  2. Very cool! Thanks Jess :) I will check this out!

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.•*´
    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    www.raising-reagan.com

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  3. I have a related questions. I have a giveaways page and I have the categories/tags set up but it still shows things that are not giveaways. I am new to WP, so I think I'm missing something or doing it wrong

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  4. I responded to you in the group ;)

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  5. You are very welcome! Let me know if you run into any issues! I had a couple of blips while setting up which is why I was extremely detailed about this LOL :)

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  6. You're welcome momma! Anything to make our lives easier! xoxo

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  7. I NEED THIS!!!! But I'm on blogger! Sad face ;(

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  8. Momma, I know you have used WP before, you should switch back! I don't know why I didn't move to WP sooner. LOL xoxo

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  9. You're very welcome! Have fun with it! xoxo

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