How do I receive automatic updates from a Facebook group by email?
March 5, 2017 7:59 AM Subscribe
I am currently looking for an apartment in a large city and am using a Facebook group called Gypsy Housing to identify potential leads. I'd like to receive an email update when certain keywords appear in the Gypsy Housing ads much in the same way one can program If This Then That (IFTTT) to send you Craigslist listings that match a particular criteria you've set up. Is this possible to do for Facebook groups as well? Has anybody constructed something that does something like this of which I’m possibly not aware?
Finding an apartment in the big city can be pretty hard. I am currently using both Craigslist as well as Facebook to find apartments that fit my particular specification. I have been using the aforementioned IFTTT with some great leads but I haven’t been able to use this same tool with Facebook. The only thing that’s currently available is to have Facebook notify you if a new posting has occurred on that particular group. You can’t however have a filter set up that sends you notification if certain keywords appear that match your interests a la IFTTT. Is this something that is available via the Facebook API or some other integrated service? Has anybody built something like this?
Finding an apartment in the big city can be pretty hard. I am currently using both Craigslist as well as Facebook to find apartments that fit my particular specification. I have been using the aforementioned IFTTT with some great leads but I haven’t been able to use this same tool with Facebook. The only thing that’s currently available is to have Facebook notify you if a new posting has occurred on that particular group. You can’t however have a filter set up that sends you notification if certain keywords appear that match your interests a la IFTTT. Is this something that is available via the Facebook API or some other integrated service? Has anybody built something like this?
Best answer: In Facebook, click through to the group and search for your keywords - but instead of the main search bar at the top, use the secondary search bar for the group. Once you've done your search, Facebook will say "Now you can save your searches! You'll get notifications when new items appear in your search." Below that message is a "Get Notifications" button. It's exactly what you want.
posted by rada at 12:20 PM on March 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rada at 12:20 PM on March 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
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It doesn't look like IFTTT knows how to pull that at the moment - you could send them a feature request. But there are tools out there that can convert a Facebook group feed into RSS which IFTTT should be able to consume. A quick search turned up this option: https://www.wallflux.com
posted by simonw at 8:11 AM on March 5, 2017