Automate Your Work with Zapier

In this modern business world, automation is a tool indispensable for both the business owner and their workers. Due to this current discipline, an unbelievably reduced amount of labor is needed from mere mortals, thus saving a considerable amount of time. For a lot of people at the moment, their best automation tool is Zapier. In the period you are covering with this guide right here, you’re expected to learn how to use the software in automating tasks between diverse web applications, practical applications, and uses that may come up with.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an online automation app that allows integration among many popular apps such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, or over 3,000 more. You can connect 2 or more apps to automate repetitive tasks while not requiring any coding or bugging developers for a custom-built integration. These automated workflows are referred to as Zaps.

Getting Started with Zapier

Step 1: Sign Up and Log In

• Visit the website of Zapier.
• Click on “Sign Up” to open an account or “Log In” if you already have an account.
• Follow the prompts to complete the sign-up process.

Step 2: Exploring the Dashboard

From the moment of logging in, Zapier takes you directly into their dashboard. The dashboard is easy and intuitive; it immediately starts to get you to work navigating and setting up great automations.

Step 3: Make a New Zap

Click “Make a Zap,” to make a new Zap for your use case. This will take you to a new Zap editor with a clean slate to build your automation.

Building Your First Zap

Sample Use Case: Automating Social Media Posts

Suppose you want to post new content on Twitter from your blog automatically. Here’s how to easily set this up with Zapier.

Step 1: Select the App as the Trigger

• Open the Zap editor and pick the app you would like to use as the trigger. In this instance, the selection would fall on “RSS” by Zapier since we are using the blog’s RSS feed.
• Choose the appropriate trigger event for that particular app. For this particular example, that would be “New Item in Feed.”
• Enter the blog’s RSS feed URL.

Step 2: Run the Zap

• Run the test for the trigger you just set up, so Zapier will head out there and grab a new item in the feed for you.
• Zapier retrieves the most recent items from your feed to test everything is working.

Step 3: Select an Action App

• Select the app that should be the action app. For this example, we’ll select “Twitter”.
• Select the action to be completed within Twitter. We will be using “Create Tweet”.

Step 4: Configure the Action

• Zapier now needs to be linked to your Twitter account.
• For instance, I could tweet along the lines of the materials from the RSS Feed article, like its article title and its link.
• Test it to see that the tweet gets assembled okay.

Step 5: Put Your Zap Into Action

OK, go ahead and give your Zap a title after the configuration was completed for your Trigger and Action using Steps. Toggle that switch ON to get the Zap into action. From now on, whenever you publish a new post on your blog, Zapier will tweet about the post to your Twitter account.

Practical Example with How to Use

• Automate Email Marketing
  For example: Add new leads from a Google Sheets spreadsheet to your Mailchimp email list.
  • Trigger: New Row in Google Sheets
  • Action: Add/Update Subscribers in Mailchimp
• Run Projects on Autopilot
  For example, create a new card on Trello for a new message posted on a specific chat in Slack.
  • Trigger: New message in Slack
  • Action: Create Trello Card
• Better Customer Support
  Use Case: Automatically create Zendesk tickets from new Google Forms responses.
  • Trigger: New response in Google Forms
  • Action: Create ticket in Zendesk
• Reduction in Manual Data Entry
  Use Case: Save new Gmail attachments to Google Drive.
  • Trigger: New attachment in Gmail
  • Action: Upload file in Google Drive
• Social Media Listening
  Use Case: Automatically post Instagram media to Facebook.
  • Trigger: New media posted in Instagram
  • Action: Create Page Post in Facebook Pages

Making the Best Out of Zapier

• Start Small: Begin your automation journey with smaller, less-intense workflows, increasing the combination of actions over time as you learn more tricks about using the platform.
• Test Your Zaps: Always test your Zap and debug it if problems occur before using it for any work.
• Filters and Paths: Apply filters and paths to make your workflow more complex and conditional; it adds that personalized touch to automation.
• Find Templates: Zapier has tons of templates that you can really take advantage of when it comes to popular automations.
• Stay Organized: It’s always a good idea if you can name your Zaps really boldly and file them in color to manage and find them effortlessly.

Conclusion

Zapier is the automation powerhouse that will save you hours and hours of pointlessly wasted time. It gets all that busy work out of your way by automating the boring, repetitive tasks between your favorite web apps without ever having to write a line of code. With this guide, you will be able to set up your first Zap and see a lot of use cases to find new ways of productivity: from managing social media, email marketing, and customer support.

Happy Automating!