How do I add articles to Employee Advocacy using RSS?

There are a few different ways you can use Zapier Zaps to pull content into Employee Advocacy. Using RSS feeds is a great way to automatically add new blog posts into your Employee Advocacy account for employees to share.

Zapier can create feeds of Stories and Sources. Stories are one-time pieces of content that flow directly from Employee Advocacy using an API key. Stories are good to use if you're creating content within Advocacy for employees to share. 

Sources are created as content feeds from sites outside of Advocacy. The outside site offers a continuous flow of content, and you have the option to choose which pieces you wish to make available for sharing through Advocacy. Sources are good to use if you want content to feed into Advocacy from anything external, including Sprout Social.

You’ll need the URL of an RSS feed to get started. If you’re not sure how to find the URL of an RSS feed:

1. Right-click on a website’s page, and then click Page Source from the menu. A new window appears.
2. Use CTRL + F on a PC or Command + F on a Mac, and then enter RSS.

The RSS feed’s URL appears between the quotes after href=

 This article contains the following sections:

• How do I add company blog posts to Employee Advocacy?
• How do I add industry articles to Employee Advocacy?

Note: Ensure you connected your Zapier account to Employee Advocacy before following these next sections. Review how to connect the two with this article.

How do I add company blog posts to Employee Advocacy?

Setting up a Zap automatically adds new blog posts to the Sources tab in Employee Advocacy. Your company’s blog must have an RSS feed to set up this Zap. Ask your web team for assistance if you’re not sure of the URL to your blog’s RSS feed.

To add company blog posts to Employee Advocacy using RSS:

1. Navigate to Zaps from your Zapier account.
2. Click Create and then click New Zap. The Zap Creator opens.
   
3. Enter a name for your Zap in the toolbar at the top of screen. Click the dropdown arrow, and then click Rename.
   
4. Click RSS for the Trigger Event in step 1.
   
   
5. Select New Item in Feed from the Trigger Event dropdown.
   
6. Copy and paste the URL of your RSS feed in the Feed URL box.
   
   
7. Click Continue.
   
   
8. Click Test trigger. If an item is found, data appears about the source.
   
9. Click Continue.
10. Click Employee Advocacy from the popup.
11. Select Create Source or Create Story from the Action Event dropdown (see the sections below on creating a Source and creating a story).
    
    

Creating an Employee Advocacy Source from an RSS feed

      1. Complete the following fields in the Set up action for a Source and click Continue:

• • Note that you don’t need to complete the following fields: Title, Content, Excerpt or Author.
  • Zap Name - Enter the name of the Zap, for example, the title of your company’s blog.
  • URL - Enter the URL you used for the RSS feed. You can also append your preferred Google Analytics UTM campaign tracking for blog posts.
  • Curator - Select a Curator from the dropdown.
  • Disable Sharing - Select true or false. True marks the story as internal and removes the option to share using Employee Advocacy.
  • Message Ideas - set a default Message Idea that’s visible to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • Note - enter in any notes you want to appear.
  • Tags - select the tags that you want applied to each new story in this Zap.
  • Topics - select the relevant topics you want applied to each new story in this Zap.

      2. Test your source by clicking Test step.

      3. Navigate back to Employee Advocacy to see if your test is successful. If it is, your Zap appears in the Sources tab of Employee Advocacy along with the fields you completed in the Set up action.

Creating an Employee Advocacy Story from an RSS feed

1. Choose your Employee Advocacy account in the Account box. 
2. Enter the Employee Advocacy API Key from your Company Settings.
   • Within Employee Advocacy, go to Company Settings > Story Creation > Configure Sources (at the bottom) > Copy (next to Key). You can also click Show to show the key.

      3. In Zapier, enter the API code you copied and click Yes, Continue to Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social and then click Continue.

      4. Complete the following fields in the Set up action for a Story:

1. • • Note that you don’t need to complete the following fields: Title, Content, Excerpt or Author.
     • Zap Name - Enter the name of the Zap, for example, the title of your company’s blog.
     • URL - Enter the URL you used for the RSS feed. You can also append your preferred Google Analytics UTM campaign tracking for blog posts.
     • Curator - Select a Curator from the dropdown.
     • Disable Sharing - Select true or false. True marks the story as internal and removes the option to share using Employee Advocacy.
     • Message Ideas - set a default Message Idea that’s visible to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
     • Note - enter in any notes you want to appear.
     • Tags - select the tags that you want applied to each new story in this Zap.
     • Topics - select the relevant topics you want applied to each new story in this Zap.

      5. Click Continue.

      6. Click Test Step to test out your Zap and Publish to send to Employee Advocacy.

Navigate back to Employee Advocacy and check your Stories tab to see if your test is successful.

Navigate back to Zapier and click Turn on Zap to complete your Zap set up.

How do I add industry articles to Employee Advocacy?

Creating a Zap for industry articles adds new blog posts from multiple RSS feeds under a single feed in the Source tab. This is a great Zap to create if your company has multiple blogs or web properties.

To add industry articles or multiple RSS feeds in Employee Advocacy using RSS:

1. Navigate to Zaps from your Zapier account.
2. Click Create Zap. The Zap Creator opens.
   
   
3. Enter a name for your Zap in the upper-left corner next to .
   
   
4. Click RSS for the Trigger Event.
   
   
5. Select New Items in Multiple Feeds from the Trigger Event dropdown.
6. Click Continue.
   
   
7. Copy and paste the URLs of your RSS feed in the Feed URLs boxes. After you paste a URL a new Feed URL box appears.
8. Click Continue.
   
   
9. Click Test trigger. If an item is found, a title appears along with a description.
   
   
10. Click Continue.
11. Enter Employee Advocacy into the Search apps… box, and then select it from the list.
12. Select Create Source from the Action Event dropdown.
    
13. Click Continue.
14. Select your Employee Advocacy account from the dropdown.
15. Click Continue.
16. Complete the following fields in the Set up action:
• Note that you don’t need to complete the following fields: Title, Content, Excerpt or Author.
• Zap Name - Enter the name of the Zap, for example, the title of your company’s blog.
• URL - Enter the URL you used for the RSS feed. You can also append your preferred Google Analytics UTM campaign tracking for blog posts.
• Curator - Select a Curator from the dropdown.
• Disable Sharing - Select true or false. False marks the story as internal and removes the option to share using Employee Advocacy.
• Message Ideas - set a default Message Idea that’s visible to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Note - enter in any notes you want to appear.
• Tags - select the tags that you want applied to each new story in this Zap. 
• Topics - select the relevant topics you want applied to each new story in this Zap.
  
17. Click Continue.
18. Click Test & Continue to test out your Zap.
    

Navigate back to Employee Advocacy to see if your test is successful. If it is, your blog post appears in the Sources tab of Employee Advocacy along with the fields you completed in the Set up action.

Navigate back to Zapier and click Turn on Zap to complete your Zap set up.

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