OXYGEN: A networking platform created through automation and software integration
Created by: Toni Lakanu, Sophie Cen and Sabrina Lakhdhir
For our creation project, we wanted to construct a unique platform that offers local artists the opportunity to create greater awareness of their work with the general public. After much deliberation, we decided on creating this platform because of our shared interest in art and our recognition of how there is a limited amount of platforms that focus on networking artists while helping art lovers find new artists and interest. Art is a powerful form of expression that entertains, inspires, and most importantly, helps people communicate their thoughts and emotions with each other. This inspired us to create Oxygen, a promotional and networking platform that allows a greater opportunity for artists and their work to reach a great array of audiences, and allows art lovers find new artists and art events near them.
Having friends who are aspiring artists, we saw usefulness in the development of such a tool. Currently, individuals belonging to artistic communities tend to use Instagram, Instagram Stories, Facebook, Facebook Stories, and other social media tools to promote themselves and their friends to their individual social circles with the hopes of gaining new fans and followers and increasing their reach. By creating a central promotional platform and featuring local artists who are currently promoting themselves on social media, we are helping these artists by developing a single platform which will have a larger reach.
What sets this platform apart, is its ability to showcase upcoming artists through their interactions on social media. We focused on social media because of its strength as a technological tool that allows millions of people to share thoughts, start conversations, and most importantly the richness of information it contains. With the ability to retrieve a great amount of information through social media at our disposal coupled with software applications that allow filtering, automation and integration, we were able to bring the Oxygen platform to life.
Development process
Our goal for the creation project was to use social media and automation to create a central networking platform that builds awareness concerning local art. To achieve this goal, we focused on using six main tools: Zapier, Twitter, Wordpress, Google spreadsheets, Google forms, and Gmail. We will be breaking down this development process down in the subsequent paragraphs.
To develop the Oxygen platform, we decided to create a high functioning webpage on Wordpress which would act as the main grounds in which artists and events are promoted.We focused on designing a structure that showcases posts on the home page and a ‘Contact’ page focused on being able to reach the Oxygen team.
This is one of the most important tool we utilized for this project is Zapier. This tool acts as the foundation for all other integrations and automation activities that take place on the Oxygen platform. Zapier is a platform that prioritizes automation to make tasks and projects easier. It’s a powerful tool that allows automation opportunities with over 100 other software applications.
Through the use of Zapier, we created two zaps that combine and control integration and automation activities to support the functionality of our platform.
Phase 1: Establishing the Oxygen platform
Step 1: Initiating a Twitter bot
We initiated our automation by selecting Twitter as our first trigger application. Zapier provides a diverse range of uses for twitter with options ranging from search mention, new followers, liked tweets and more. For the purpose of our creation, we selected ‘Search & Geo Mention’ as the main function of the twitter integration. This option retrieves tweets that include search terms within a specific location. This feature is quite useful for our platform as we prioritize networking opportunities for local artists.
Once we set this trigger in place, we connected our twitter account, Enticreation, to the platform. Next, Zapier requires us to to complete required fields. This step is quite important as connecting our twitter account allows us activate our twitter bot. The fields include:
- Search Term: This aspect allows us apply generic search terms in order for our twitter bot to retrieve our preferred tweets. For this purpose we entered the following in the search term field: “upcoming artist” OR “upcoming concert” OR “art show” OR “upcoming musician” OR “upcoming show” OR “theatre show”.
- Latitude & Longitude: To make sure our twitter bot remains geo-specific, Zapier offers the option to enter geographic coordinates for our preferred location. To accomplish this, we went to google maps and right clicked, this opened a list of options in which we chose the “What’s here” option. The first coordinates that appears is the latitude while the second is the longitude. For the oxygen platform we entered 51 as our latitude and -114 as our longitude.
- Radius: This field captures the distance in which the twitter bot should cover. For this field, we choose 200km so as to cover a greater area of Alberta.
The final step in activating our twitter bot is to test the trigger. Here, Zapier shows us samples of possible tweets it has found based on our specifications. After selecting one of the samples shown, Zapier is able to confirm what kinds of tweets best fit our search criteria.
Step 2: Publishing a Twitter post on Wordpress
Next, we created our first action on Zapier. We initiated this action by selecting Wordpress as our first action application. We then selected “Create Post” as the action that Wordpress will carryout. Next, we connected our Oxygen account on Wordpress to Zapier, we then tested it to make sure the account was successfully connected. Zapier offers the option to edit our Wordpress template. In this part, we filled out the template to make sure it shows certain pieces of critical information when a post is made, including Artist (Tweeter) name, the date of the post, and a small description (the Tweet itself). This allows for an automated process for every tweet that is retrieved on the platform and posted onto the Oxygen website.
Finally, the last step in setting up our Wordpress action is to test our set up. Once we tested the step, Zapier confirmed its success by reporting that a test post had been sent directly to our Wordpress website.
Step 3: Creating a responsive tweet
The last step in this phase was to create a tweet that automatically responds to those whose tweets have been posted onto the Oxygen platform. As opposed to setting the Twitter application as a trigger as we previously did in the first step, we started this aspect by choosing Twitter as an action application. Next, we selected the action carried out by this application to ‘Create Tweet’. Again, we logged into our twitter account, Enticreation, to make sure the tweets could be active and would be sent directly from our account to the Tweeter. We then tested the step to make sure our account was successfully connected. We continued by editing the twitter template. In this portion, we told Zapier to select the Tweeter’s handle followed by our typed out response being “check this out” and a link to the website in the message portion of the Tweet. Zapier also gives us the option to shorten any urls within the post in which we selected ‘Yes’. Once we set up the preceding requirements, we then proceeded to test the step. This step was a success and we were able to send a post directly to the Tweeter.
This system has been put in place to guarantee that every Tweeter whose post has been published on Wordpress is notified of this action and then given an opportunity to browse the Oxygen platform, learn about upcoming events, as well as local artists.
By following the three preceding steps, we were able to successfully create our first zap! This phase allowed us to establish a functioning twitter bot that retrieves information, posts these tweets to Wordpress and alerts Tweeters about the use of their tweets on our website.
Phase 2: Promoting Artists
Step 1: Integrating Google forms & Google Spreadsheet
To begin Phase two of our project we created a Google Form, named as Feature Request, in order to gather information from visitors who wish to be promoted on the Oxygen platform. The form collects information concerning the content of what they wish to promote, their names and contact information. The email address field is especially important in this stage because it enables us to send a response to these visitors afterwards (this will be further discussed later on).
We initiated our automation by selecting Google Forms as the trigger application in Zapier. We then selected “New Response in Spreadsheet” as the trigger activity for Google Sheets. This activity enables triggers to occur when a visitor has filled in our Google Form, allowing a new row to be added to the bottom of the spreadsheet. Next, we connected our Oxygen account on Google Forms to let Zapier access it. After that, we set up our Google Forms Response. We selected “Feature Request” as our preferred spreadsheet (the Google form which was created in step 1 of this phase), and then selected ‘Form Responses 1’ as the worksheet. This means that when a response is received from our users, it will be logged in the spreadsheet.
Finally, we tested the set up by picking a sample from the responses offered by Zapier. After completing this step, we have successfully linked the answers received from our Google forms go to the Google Spreadsheet.
Step 2: Publishing a promotional post on Wordpress
We begin by creating the first action in this phase. Again, we selected Wordpress as our action application because the information received through Google forms in the previous step is going to be promoted on to our website. After selecting Wordpress, we selected ‘Create Post’ as its action. Next, we connected our Oxygen account on Wordpress to make sure that Zapier can access to it. After that, Zapier offers several options for the aspects of the Wordpress post such as post type, title, content, post date, tages and so on. This aspect is similar to step 2 of phase 1, however in this phase, we fill in the template with responses retrieved from our Google form. Thus, based on the answers provided by those who filled out our Google Form, Zapier automates a post on to Wordpress.
Finally, we test the set up. Zapier confirmed that our test post was successful.
Step 3: Setting up a “Thank You” letter through Gmail
The final step of this phase is to select Gmail as an action application to send an automated “Thank You” letter to our users. We selected ‘Send email’ as the action — this allows Zapier to create and send a new email message whenever a trigger appears. We then connected it to our company gmail account. After that, we set up the preview page through the following steps:
- In the ‘To’ field, we selected the “Insert a Field” button and chose “Email”, which is in the spreadsheet, Column G.
- In the bCC field, we entered our company email to ensure that we are informed whenever a “Thank You” email had been sent out.
- We set the ‘From Name’ as The Oxygen Team
- We named the subject as Oxygen Feature Request
- For the “Body Type”we selected plain
- And finally for the “Body” field, we typed in “Hello” and then selected Column E which allows an automatic fill in of the name of the users from the Google Spreadsheet. On the next paragraph we typed in our thank you note and selected Column B; showing the title of the content to be promoted as retrieved from Google forms and shown on Google Spreadsheet.
Finally we tested the email action to guarantee that it sends responses that thank our visitors and inform them about their content being successfully posted on the Oxygen website. Finally, we succeeded in creating our second and final zap!
By keeping these two zaps on, we have now fully activated our Oxygen platform and local artists can begin networking.
With the steps discussed in the preceding paragraphs, we were able to create a networking platform through automation and software integration. We believe this platform creates great room for artists, specifically those integrated in an artistic community, to express their art with other artists and the general public around them.
Check us out to find artists or art events near you! https://enticreationproject.wordpress.com/
