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  TidBITS Arrives on Mastodon, Continues (Reluctantly) on Twitter and Facebook

   Adam Engst

   As part of Elon Musk's not-so-secret plan to drive Twitter into the
   ground, the company recently rejiggered the pricing for API access for
   developers, raising the cost for enterprise-level access from free to a
   minimum of [1]$42,000 per month. You wouldn't want it to be easy for
   publishers to post their content on Twitter, would you?

   That new level was both prima facie ridiculous and financially
   infeasible for companies like Automattic, makers of WordPress and the
   Jetpack plug-in that enables automatic social media sharing of posts.
   [2]Automattic turned off the option to post to Twitter in Jetpack and
   said it would add the capability to share posts to Mastodon and
   Instagram.

   I've used Jetpack to post TidBITS articles on Twitter and Facebook for
   years. Despite the hoopla about social media, neither the impressions
   nor subsequent engagement has ever been more than a drop in the bucket
   of TidBITS traffic or conversation. We see about 200'500 views per post
   on Twitter, while Facebook posts average 100'300 views. While those
   numbers seem low, clickthroughs are even worse: Google Analytics tells
   me that social media accounted for just 1.64% of TidBITS traffic over
   the last year. Unimpressive though those numbers are, they took no work
   to generate, thanks to Jetpack.

   However, Jetpack has now stopped posting our articles on Twitter. My
   initial reaction was, 'Good riddance!' I was prepared to leave Twitter
   entirely. But, although this breakage was an excellent opportunity to
   drop Twitter like the rotten potato it has become, I couldn't help
   wondering if there was an alternative way of posting TidBITS articles
   on Twitter for free. It wasn't worth anything to me other than the time
   spent scratching an intellectual itch.

   Some research showed that the social media management service [3]Buffer
   still offers a free plan for three channels, whereas competitor
   [4]Hootsuite has only paid plans. Because the raison d'être of both is
   to post to social media, they are either unaffected by Twitter's
   enterprise pricing changes or have decided to absorb the cost
   increases.

   But how to get TidBITS articles into Buffer's queue automatically? Just
   as I'm unwilling to pay anything to post to social media, I also refuse
   to do any ongoing work to make it happen. If it's not automated, forget
   it.

   Initially, I gravitated to the automation services [5]IFTTT and
   [6]Zapier, both of which I think about periodically even though neither
   has ever actually solved a problem for me. That has continued to be
   true because even though both claim to be able to bring in a WordPress
   post and send it off to Buffer, neither proved capable of logging
   directly into my WordPress server. Zapier also recommended its
   [7]WordPress plug-in, but I passed since it hasn't been updated in a
   year and has only two stars, as multiple users claim it doesn't work at
   all. IFTTT and Zapier remain options for blogs hosted on WordPress.com
   that can't install plug-ins, assuming you can get them to log in.

   However, I quickly found the [8]WordPress to Buffer plug-in, which has
   4.5 stars and was last updated a week ago. After my developer installed
   it, it took me just minutes to connect to my Buffer account and
   configure WordPress to post to Twitter. It has a Pro version with
   additional features that costs $39 per year, but none of the extra
   features seem necessary for my setup.

   As a bonus, Buffer and the WordPress to Buffer plug-in now support
   Mastodon, so I also set up and connected a TidBITS account there. If
   you're using Mastodon and want TidBITS headlines in your feed, follow
   us at @[9][email protected].

   Finally, curious about what was happening with our posts on Facebook, I
   visited our page there and discovered that something caused Jetpack to
   stop posting to Facebook after March 2023. No one has apparently
   noticed or at least mentioned it to me. Since I was goofing around in
   Buffer anyway, I set it up to post to Facebook and turned Jetpack's
   reposting service off entirely.

   While part of me wants to kick social media to the curb entirely, I'd
   feel bad for those who like seeing TidBITS articles in their feeds. So
   as long as posting TidBITS articles on social media remains free and
   automatic, I'll keep it going.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api
   2. https://jetpack.com/blog/the-end-of-twitter-auto-sharing/
   3. https://buffer.com/pricing
   4. https://www.hootsuite.com/plans
   5. https://ifttt.com/
   6. https://zapier.com/
   7. https://wordpress.org/plugins/zapier/#description
   8. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-to-buffer/#description
   9. file://localhost/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection

   Hidden links:
  10. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2023/05/WP-to-Buffer.png

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