BUFFER - FOR EASY POSTING TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Posting to your social media channel from your FarmCentric website is now easier than ever with Buffer! Buffer is a social media manager that allows you to post to all of your social media platforms with a single post. We’ve integrated Buffer into your FarmCentric tools to allow you easier management of your posts and access to analytics for your shared stories through the Buffer Dashboard.

Buffer allows you individual level access, which is free to you! Individual accounts allow you to connect to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram using just one account or login.

For most of our customers, this free level of access should be more than sufficient to meet your social media posting needs, however, if you need more access to multiple accounts on a single social media platform, you can sign up for Buffer’s Awesome or Enterprise level account which allows posting on 10 to 150 different accounts for each social media channel, as well as access to posting on Pinterest, RSS feeds, Calendar, and extended analytics.

However you choose to use Buffer, you will experience seamless integration with FarmCentric content.

CREATING A BUFFER ACCOUNT

To begin, you will need to have an account created on each social media website that you plan to publish to. You will need the username and password for each of these accounts handy in order to connect to them through Buffer.

 Go to https://buffer.com and click the “Sign up for free” button.

 You can then choose to sign up one of four ways:

o Sign up with your existing Twitter Account,

o Sign up with your existing Facebook Account,

o Sign up with your existing LinkedIn Account,

OR

o Create a new Buffer account using your email address and entering a unique password.

1 CONNECTING TO SOCIAL MEDIA WITH BUFFER

Once you have successfully created an account and logged in, you will be taken to the Buffer Dashboard where you can connect to your social media accounts, pages, and/or groups.

 Twitter and Instagram offer a very straightforward connection process. You simply click the “Connect” button, and you will be prompted to enter your login credentials for that site. o If you don’t already have an account with your chosen social media platform, you will be offered a link to sign up for a new one to begin posting to.

 Once you authorize Buffer’s access to that account, you will be taken back to your Dashboard where you can continue connecting to your other social media accounts.

2  For Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+, you have the added option to connect with a page or group. o If you select “Profile” you will simply need to enter your username/password to connect, just like with Twitter and Instagram.

o If you select “Page” or “Group”, you will still be prompted to log in, but once you confirm your login credentials, you will be asked permission to allow Buffer to access any pages/groups that you manage.

o Click OK, and you will then be given the option to connect to the main profile or a specific group/page that you manage.

Using the free/basic membership level, you will only be able to choose one way of connecting to each social media site. If you need to publish to multiple pages, groups or profiles, you may want to consider upgrading to Awesome or Enterprise level membership with Buffer. However, you also have the ability to disconnect or remove a social media account and reconnect to a different one at any time.

3 INTEGRATING YOUR BUFFER ACCOUNT WITH FARMCENTRIC

Once you have set up your Buffer account and connected your social media accounts, you are now ready to create the API Access Token that will allow you to publish your FarmCentric stories and content through Buffer to your social media accounts.

To do this you will need to visit the Buffer Developers website and create what’s referred to as an app. Going through these steps will allow you to create an Access Token, which is what you will use to connect your FarmCentric Administrator account to your new Buffer account.

 To begin, go to the following URL: https://buffer.com/developers

 Once there, locate and click on the “Create an app” button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

 Next you will see the form allowing you to create an app. The information you enter here is not published anywhere online. It is only used to allow integration from your FarmCentric site to Buffer through web services.

1. Your app name - Give your app a name. Any name will work.

2. A short description – Briefly describe what you are using this app for.

3. Application’s homepage - You may enter your company website URL for this field.

4. Company behind this app (if any) – Please enter your company name here. Otherwise you may enter “None” or “N/A”.

5. Company’s Website (if available) – You may enter your company website URL here again.

6. Callback URL – You may copy and paste the red text on this line into the text box.

 Once you have completed the form, click the Create Application button below.

4 The next screen will list your newly registered app. At the bottom of the screen, there is an Access Token.

This is a unique identifier that is specific to your Buffer account which allows everything to work between your FarmCentric account and Buffer. This is the piece of information you need to continue.

Highlight this text and copy it to notepad or some other place where you will not lose it.

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR ACCESS TOKEN

 Now that you have your Access Token, log in to your FarmCentric Admin Dashboard.

 Under the orange Company Information section, choose Administrator Maintenance.

 Select the administrator who will be publishing your content from the list.

 Find the Content Publication Settings section and click to expand this content area. Inside this section, you have a text field that says Buffer Access Token.

 Paste your Access Token that you copied from Buffer into this text box.

 Click the Update button at the bottom of your screen.

Once you have completed these steps, you are done! You can quickly and easily publish your stories to your social media accounts starting immediately.

- If you need to allow other administrators to publish stories using the same buffer account, please repeat the steps for WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR ACCESS TOKEN to add the token to other administrator profiles.

- You also have the option of allowing the other administrators to create their own Buffer accounts, which would allow them to publish to different social media accounts than the ones you created here.

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