A few weeks ago I came across a site that is fantastic. It’s called “If This Than That” It is basically a social media automation site. It’s fantastic. What does it do? My mom and dad don’t use Instagram so I created a recipe that emails my parents a picture of every Instragram picture I take automatically. It’s a very power tool that is only getting better.

Here is how it works.

1. You start with a channel

Channels are the basic building blocks of IFTTT. Each Channel has its own Triggers and Actions. Some example Channels include – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WordPress, dropbox ect.

2. Next comes the trigger:

The this part of a Recipe is a Trigger. Some example Triggers are “I’m tagged in a photo on Facebook” or “I check in on Foursquare.”

3. The Action What you want your trigger to do:

The that part of a Recipe is an Action. Some example Actions are “send me a text message” or “create a status message on Facebook.”

4. What specifically you want your trigger to tell you:

Pieces of data from a Trigger are called Ingredients. For example, the Ingredients of an Email Trigger could be: subject, body, attachment, received date, and the sender’s address.

If you want to pause a recipe you simply turn the recipe off and it stops working to resume the recipe you switch it to on and you pick up where you left off. Easy.

Check it out the possibilities are endless.