Power Automate allows automating posting on social media.
Use Quick Tips and learn how to automate posting on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and build social media publishing scheduler.
Power Automate gives the opportunity to automate posting to social media like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Integration with social portals through native actions is not the easiest solution, but thanks to integration with Zapier.com you can extend the functionality of Power Automate.
Publishing posts and updates on social media could be time-consuming. Especially when you would like to publish posts on multiple social media platforms at the same time. Power Automate allows you to publish posts on Twitter and Linkedin. If you would like to extend it to posts for Facebook you will need to use Zapier.com.
In this article you will learn how to use Power Automate flow actions:
- Twitter – Post a tweet
- LinkedIn – Share an article V2 (preview)
- Excel – Add row into a table
You will also learn about possible integration between Office 365 and Zapier. Build your own social media publishing scheduler based on Office 365.
Post article in LinkedIn using Power Automate
In case you would like to publish a post on the LinkedIn portal you can use Power Automate action Share am article V2 (preview).
To create the post in Linkedin you need to set:
- Content URL – address of the content you would like to share – required
- Visible to guest – You need to use Yes to share this with everyone – required
- Title – headline for the shared content
- Description – Description, not displayed in the post
- Image URL – address of the image that will visualize the post – highly recommend setting it every time. LinkedIn many times does not recognize feaured image.
- Subject – Subject, not displayed in the post
- Text – Content of the post you are publishing.
When you will set up a post for LinkedIn in Power Automate it could look like this:
I recommend using Zapier for the integration with social media like Linkedin, but you can use native Share an article V2 (preview) action.
Post a tweet on Twitter using Power Automate
In case you would like to publish a tweet on the Twitter portal you can use Power Automate action Post a tweet.
To create the post on Twitter you need to set:
- Text to be poster – your message
- Media – url to the shared content
Remember that this action does not validate the length of the message which is limited in the case of Twitter to 280 characters.
When you will set up a post for Twitter in Power Automate it could look like this:
Again, I recommend using Zapier for the integration with social media like Twitter, but you can use native Post a tweet action.
Post a message on Facebook using Power Automate
At the moment Power Automate does not offer native actions that allow integration with Facebook.
Publish posts on Facebook Page or Group using Power Automate and Zapier
An important element in building integration between Office 365 and social media using Zapier is to understand what Zapier’s service really is.
Zapier is an online application that allows integrating with multiple platforms. To be fair it is application ver similar to Power Automate, but focus on public services.It gives the possibility to connect between:
- OneDrive for Business
- Facebook page
- Facebook groups
- and more…
Zapier application is available in a subscription model, but it offers Free Plan with some limitations:
- Up to 5 Zaps – applications/integrations
- One step Zaps
- Up to 100 executions of Zaps per month
If you would like to publish posts on social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
? Remember you will need to authenticate in Zapier using your Microsoft 365 account. This could be a security concern to your organization. Check that with your IT team before you will build a solution based on Zapier.
Zapier application will load the data from your Office 365 and push it to social media services.
Push your data to an Excel file hosted in the OneDrive
In case you would like to push records to Excel file in the OneDrive you can use Power Automate action Add a row into a table.
To create the new row in the Excel file table you need to set:
- Location – your message
- Document Library – url to the shared content
- File – filename of the Excel file
- Table – the name of the table created in the Excel file.
- Columns in the table – mapping for all existing columns in the selected table
When you will set up a new row in the Excel table in Power Automate it could look like this:
As soon as that kind of record will be created in the Excel file Zapier will execute the next steps.
Use Zapier to publish posts in Facebook pages and groups
In the next step, you will use the Zapier application to publish posts in Facebook Page or Facebook Group. This will allow you to use Power Automate data to integrate it with Facebook.
? Before you will forward, you will need to add permissions to Zapier app in your Facebook pages and groups to make it work.
1. Create the new Zap – application in Zapier.
To do that select Create Zap button.
2. Configure the Trigger for your Zap based on a new row in the Excel file hosted in OneDrive.
During setup of your trigger select Microsoft Excel.
And select the event: New Row in the Table.
In the next step, you will need to authenticate to your Microsoft 365 using your credentials. Learn more about how Zapier stores credentials and secure authentication tokens.
3. Setup the trigger using OneDrive and Excel file
In the final step of setting up the trigger, you will need to set up a connection to the matching file used earlier in Power Automate.
When you will set up a new row in the Excel table trigger in Zapier it could look like this:
4. Set the posting to Facebook Page or Facebook Group
Now you need to setup the action that will publish the post or message on Facebook.
You can post a message to the Facebook Group
or create a post on Facebook Page.
During the configuration of the action, you will need to authenticate to Facebook service and then map data stored in Excel to Message and URL in the Facebook.
After you will configure these actions you will be able to publish Power Automate data to Facebook without development or Premium licenses.
Social media posting scheduler based on Office 365 and Zapier
You can see that using the integration between Office 365 and Zapier allows you to build social media publishing scheduler. To develop social media posting scheduler you will need to extend the presented approach for the Microsoft List to register the content and Power Automate action to pause till chosen date.
Development of social media publishing scheduler is possible based on presented applications and will not require advanced Power Automate skills or Premium licenses. You will be able to build such a solution for free.
Conclusion
Power Automate allows you to automate social media posting. Use Office 365 to build social media publishing scheduler. Automate the process of publishing on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.
