How to set-up the Social Media Promoter

1. To create your Facebook App:

  • Go to: https://developers.facebook.com
  • Log in using your Facebook account. If your account is not a developper account you will be asked additional details.
  • Go to APPS section and click “Create New App”.
  • Choose a name and a category for your application and click Continue.
  • Type the two words you will see in the security box(captcha) and click Continue. Now your application is created.
  • The last thing you need to do is to enter the “App Domain” (the domain of your website) and to enter your website url ( ex: http://web3box.com ) in the “Website with Facebook Login”-“Site URL” input.
    Remember also to disable “Sandbox Mode” if you want your application to be visible to all your admin users. Click the Save button.
  • Now your application is ready to use: take the App ID and App Secret keys and put them in the configuration section of the component, connect your facebook account to your application and start promoting!

2. To create your Twitter App:

  • Go to: https://dev.twitter.com
  • Sign in with your Twitter account.
  • In the right corner of the screen, from your avatar drop-down, click “My Applications”.
  • Click “Create a new application”.
  • Choose a name for your application, enter a short description and your site url. Also you need to input the following Callback URL: http://<yourdomain>/administrator/index.php?option=com_smpromoter&view=twconnect
  • Agree to their Terms & Conditions and fill in the captcha input, then click “Create your Twitter application”. Now your application is created.
  • One last important step is to go in the “Settings” tab, scroll down to “Application Type” section, and check “Read and Write”. Click “Update this Twitter application’s settings” and now you’re ready.
  • Take Consumer Key and Consumer Secret keys from the “Details” tab and use them in the options section of the component. After connecting your Twitter account to the application you just created you will be able to start promoting.

3. Create your LinkedIn App:

  • Go to: http://developer.linkedin.com
  • Signin with your LinkedIn account.
  • In the right corner of the screen, from your account name drop-down, click “API Keys”
  • Click “Add New Application”.
  • Fill all required details when creating the application. Set the “Live Status” to Live if you are not using it just for tests, and most important, check both r_basicprofile and rw_nus in the “OAuth User Agreement ” – “Default Scope” section.
  • Click “Add Application”. Now you’re ready.
  • Take the API Key and API Secret Key and add them in the option sections of the component. Connect your LinkedIn account to the application you just created and start promoting.

4. Set up the scheduling feature:

There are two ways to do it: the do-everything-yourself way and the API way.

If you want the API to do your work:

  • 1 – Go to www.easycron.com.
  • 2 – Register and copy your API key.
  • 3 – Paste the API key into the Easy CRON API key input from the Options modal.
  • 4 – Choose the option to set up the CRON with Easy Cron API in the Options modal.

If you want to set the CRON yourself, these are the things you should do:

  • 1 – Go to your hosting server’s control panel.
  • 2 – Search for Cron Jobs.
  • 3 – When setting the cron use the following url: http://<yourdomain>/index.php?option=com_smpromoter&task=promoteScheduledPosts
  • 4 – Set the Cron Job to run whenever you want (preferably around every 10 minutes).
  • 5 – Choose the option to set up the CRON manually in the Options modal of the component.

Once you are done with above settings, go to Social Media Promoter page in admin and click on the “Options” button (top right) – this will open the page where you will add your keys for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

social-media-promoter-configuration