Facebook groups Automation

Anybody know of any tools that can post to un-owned Facebook groups (member but not owner) and/or others Pages, in an automated way - other than Hootsuite.

Thanks

You mean spam? That’s not allowed, and any responses that mention tools used to send spam will be deleted.

Automation does not imply spam. It implies productivity. If I am going to post a text or image or video, to several relevent facebook groups. It is not spam because I wish to reduce the overhead of what I would otherwise do manually. If you are going to use the argument that it is unsolicited and should therefore be banned then nobody could post to a group in facebook. Get real.

Hootsuite for instance operate in full colaboration with Facebook. IFTTT with many, Yahoo Pipes has a dedicated Flickr module. Get real.

This is not about spam!!!

I think the implication being made here is that the same message to several groups is spam, not that sharing one message written particularly in response to what that group is doing with relevant content for it is. If you were instead copying & pasting something blindly across multiple groups that would of course be spam.

Unfortunately automation is often misused which causes a swift reaction when it is discussed… after all social is about the opportunity to communicate and results come best when you interact directly which tools can certainly help with managing, but not so much with setting things up that you don’t see.

That said the Facebook API does allow for posting to a group wall although I’m not clear on how access rights are done. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/group/

Still I’ve never seen a tool offer it.

Do you know when I read your response on the Warrior Forum thread, I thought for a moment that it was this thread, as it seemed to relate to Stevie D in here. It didnt dawn on me that it was duplicated from here.

And tongue in cheek - in that your message is about Stevie D’s comment -are you not spamming my Warrior Forum thread? For your response has no place in that thread!

To be Frank I hadnt checked out the Facebook API, partly because of time but also because, like you, as all the other tools I have seen offer only access to owned/administered groups I assumed it was not an option. Actually of course Hootsuite in fact does have this provision so the API may well do the job, in which case I will just have to make the investment. This might take some time though so if anyone has other susggestions in the mean time please wax on.

Anyway thanks for the response Elfin, …er I mean Ted!

Andy

Who are you referring too?

Edit: Did some digging… I only post here so I’m not sure what caused someone to want to repost part of my reply elsewhere. To your point the response has absolutely no contextual relevance.

Before you accused Ted of reposting, did you check the warrior thread for dates? Could be that your buddy elfin over there plagiarized Ted’s post instead of writing his own. Moreover, if you have an issue with something you find here at SitePoint, please report it to a moderator instead of accusing someone within a thread. That’s the way we do things here.

@Ted

On the reposting of your message - it is at:

Elfin Lied is the offending contributor - and my messages from sitepoint are also beng reproduced there now to by the same contributor, the other similar thread I started here:

has a post reproduced here: #5

As to my comment about your spamming the Warrior Forum Ted, it was an attempt at “tonge in cheek” humour - I appologise if you were offended by it.

@shyflower - it was supposed to be a joke not an accusation, I didnt think Ted had done anything wrong, I thought possibly somehow he had copy/pasted the wrong message although of course I was assuming it was Ted that had posted there under a different name, after all the words are the same. ARE the same.

I dont have a buddy at Warrior Forum.

Why would I check the dates of the duplicated message there, when I saw no crime? - plus the messages there are clearly produced later than Ted’s on sitepoint, so why is the time relevent. Could be plagiarized? Of course it is Plagiarism, if another has passed off Ted’s words as his own - I’m missing your point.

Why do you think I have an issue with something at sitepoint? There is a mystery about reposting elsewhere. If you wish to take up something you consider to be an issue - feel free. It would also be interesting to know - What you think my issue is with Ted or sitepoint?

Let me repeat the comment about ted spamming was supposed to be a joke. A tongue in cheek mention of the fact that Ted’s words ARE reproduced in more than one location. It was not an accusation, it was not a criticism but it is a fact

My My!

Gotcha… And makes sense to me. Certainly no reason to take your thread off topic any more than it already is… so back to the subject at hand, did you figure out any tool to help with this?

Nothing as yet Ted. I am going to look at the facebook api if I hear nothing comes to light in the mean time, but many other pressing things to deal with so not sure how far down the road it might be.

I am still hopefull that somebody might have a suggestion here, but the way the topic has gone so far. I am doubtfull.

Facebook wont allow that dude. Better think of some other ways.

Well it would be interesting to hear you explain why Facebook allow integration in hootsuite which is one tool that provides functionality for automating a post to groups. Hootsuite have a very public FB page and is widely known and used. There are other products that do this similarly.

However Hootsuite does not function in the way I wish it to and I have not found others that do, either.

For instance at he moment I am looking to post the output of an RSS feed into various FB Groups, I own many, but Hootsuite only embeds text - I want impact - graphics and particularly video.

IFTTT could use the route: IF RSS Then Send gmail to group. But it fails to arrive in the group.

So far, as per the above examples, those I have tried all fail to deliver in one way or another.

So the question is both valid and yet to be resolved.

I totally agree with you. Tools are not spam and broadcasting a message to multiple group isn’t either. They could put spam on steroid I agree. To do it right I suggest to ask a question or have an engaging post in order to reach your target market. Automate your own wallpost isn’t spam either. If you would do it manually anyway I suggest to automate it.
Facebook automation is the best thing since slice bread.

Please help me understand how automating content whose purpose is engagement would be a good thing?

Asking a question to 60 groups is better than asking to 5. Later on,go check who answered and then engage with those people in Private conversation or the tread itself. It work for me to generate traffic, leads, sales and grow my business. You might disagree but I am happy with my results.

Come on Ted surely you are not so narrow focussed that engagement in itself is the key!

Engage with the wrong people and waste a lot of time. Trawl wide and focus on the element that have a real interest. This is the reason traditional advertising reaches its target audience, and it is the real reason why business uses social media - they don’t just like chatting - they want to roam an orchard where they can focus on the ripe fruit - they don’t want to chat - they want to steer engagement and deliver their message to those that have a greater prospect of being convinced!

LaptopLifestyle a man that understands! Trawl wide and focus on the few that count!

You are right callmeandy, I would like to get to know you better. I think we can jive together.