Auto-post YouTube videos to Facebook fan pages? Hootsuite does it, but…
I like the first Facebook page status update, not the second way
Seeing as though one of my latest passions has been learning how to edit videos to update on my church’s YouTube channel (as well as still writing for Examiner.com — no wonder I haven’t updated this site in a while), today I searched around for more effective ways to automatically update the two Facebook pages I’m one of the administrators for with the new YouTube videos.
Yes, Facebook has ways to connect your FB profile with YouTube, like the “Connect your Facebook Account” option that lets you “See YouTube videos your friends share to their profiles,” which is not what we want.
In YouTube, under Account Settings, there’s Activity Sharing, which says “Your activity feed is the actions that you take on YouTube like favoriting, rating, or uploading a video.”
What activities do I share?
Include these actions in my feed: (You can check options like “upload a video” here
Where do I share my activities?
Automatically post my activities to: Facebook yes, but this only gives the option of your personal profile FB page, not the pages you administer
Enter Hootsuite, a tool I like to use for updating between various social networks.
They let you grab the RSS feed address of any site and update your actual Facebook pages, not just profiles.
So I grabbed the RSS feed address of the YouTube channel and put it in Hootsuite, and gave permission to update to the Facebook pages.
Hootsuite actually updated the Facebook page’s status with a link to the new YouTube video, but I didn’t like the way it did it.
I like when FB statuses show the actual thumbnail image of the video and include just a youtube.com url, not a link shortener like ur.ly or whatever.
So it’s back to the drawing board. If anyone knows a way to update it the way I like it, please leave a comment! Thanks!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
YouTube may send videos to your profile page but it doesn’t post videos to your fan page. If you want post new YouTube videos on your fan page automatically, check out http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=162891010412392&v=info or install it from here http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=5eeb66bdbeccd6a4f13baaf64d2fa059&pages. It also add a tab to allow your fans to search/view all your YouTube Videos.
Nice, thanks Sameer — maybe I’ll try Friendfeed.
Hi!
I’m trying to do something similar to you. Thanks for the advice, I was already using Hootsuite and had no idea it did that!
I came across this link which didn’t do what I wanted it to do, but I think is what you’re looking for.
http://sameerkhansblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/auto-post-embed-your-favourite-youtube.html