Letting your office open accounts on blogs and forums

Your office opens the accounts it needs on blogs and forums in your name, with a Google account you open for your business and use only for this; every reply it writes still waits for your approval. What it does not do today is at the end of this page.

Before you turn it on: connect the accounts you already have

If your business already has an account on a blog or forum, connect it first. Once a site is connected, your office uses that account there and opens no new one.

1. On the Connectors page, open “Community replies”, under your Sales department.
2. Open “Let me connect my own account (optional)” and press “Connect a site”.
3. Type the “Address of the site or discussion” and choose “I will sign in myself” (you sign in with your own hands in a browser window), “I will give the office my password” (“We store the password encrypted and never show it back.” — it does not work on sites that ask for two-step verification or a new-device check) or “No account needed”, for a site that takes comments with just a name, e-mail and website — never on Reddit, Discourse or Disqus.
4. Read the account warning and “What you are agreeing to”, tick to confirm, and press “Connect”.

Turn it on — four steps

In the same connector, “Turn on community replies” says: “Your office finds blogs and forums where your business can help, and opens the accounts it needs in your name. You set this up once.” Press “Turn on”.

1. Read the account warning. Use a Google account you opened for your business — “not your personal account, and not the Google account you actually use for your company”. “Name the Google account after your business — that name appears beside your comments.”
2. Fill in “Your business identity”: “The name your replies are signed with”, “Your website address” and “Your Google (Gmail) address” — “The office registers with this address and opens this mailbox only to find a site’s activation e-mail — nothing else is read.”
3. Read “What your office will do in your name” in full — among other things: “Every message still goes out with your approval.” Tick “I have read this and agree.” and press “Turn on and sign in to Google”.
4. Sign in to Google yourself. A browser window that belongs only to your business opens; “we never see, type or store your password, and we never pass a Google check for you.” The connector then reads “Linked — your office may open accounts in your name.”

The Gmail address must match the Google account you sign in with

The address you type in “Your Google (Gmail) address” must belong to the Google account you sign in with. If the two differ, the office stops before it reads any activation e-mail and opens no more accounts; the connector reads “The Google sign-in did not complete — please sign in again.” and “The address you typed and the account that signed in are different.” Press “Link with Google” and sign in with the account whose address you typed. If the typed address was wrong, press “Disconnect: turn off community replies” and turn community replies on again with the right one.

How an account gets opened

Your office opens an account only after you approve a reply for a site where your business has none: “When you approve a reply for a site you have no account on, your office opens one in your name and posts from it.”

1. Google first. Where the site has a “Sign in with Google” button, the office uses your linked Google account. The account shows “Signed in with Google — no password”.
2. Otherwise, an e-mail sign-up on a WordPress blog: the office “registers with this Gmail address of yours, generates a strong password”, saves both to your vault first, then opens your Gmail once to find the activation e-mail that site sent in the last hour, and follows its link. The account shows “registered by e-mail”.
3. Nowhere else. On Reddit, Discourse and Disqus without a Google button: “The office does not open accounts on this kind of site — post this one yourself.” Elsewhere: “The office could not read this site’s sign-up form.” Connect your own account there instead.

Human checks

If a site asks for a human check, the office stops and hands that step to you: “blog.example.com is asking for a human check — you have 9 min”. Press “I will verify the site”, pass the check with your own hands in the window, and press “Continue” — “the office carries on from there by itself”. You have 10 minutes; the office never passes a check in your place.

The accounts your office opened

Your vault, “Accounts your office opened” in the same connector, lists each one with its site, “Username”, “E-mail”, when it was opened, and who put it there — for example “Your office opened this account in your name.”

• For an account registered by e-mail, “Show the password” first says that the password appears for 30 seconds, hidden until you press “Show” and copyable either way, and that “The fact that you read it is recorded.” Press “Show it”.
• An account opened with Google has no password of its own, so there is nothing to show.
• Passwords are kept encrypted. A password you gave the office yourself is never shown back to you.

Limits

• Your office opens at most 3 new accounts a day; the next one waits and is tried again later.
• “The site’s rules may forbid automation; your account may be closed.”

Disconnecting

• One site: “Disconnect” on its row — “The password is erased now; the site session is cleared the next time that site is opened. The account itself stays on the site and remains listed here.” Later, “Connect this site again” opens a window where you sign in yourself.
• Everything: “Disconnect: turn off community replies” deletes the Google session and the passwords of every account the office opened. The accounts stay on their sites, in your name: “The account itself is on blog.example.com, in your name — if you want it gone, close it on that site.”

What stays yours

Every reply your office writes for a blog or forum waits in your Review queue, and nothing is posted until you approve it — see Drafts, approval and sending. Opening an account is not charged separately; what your office’s work costs is on Credits.

When it does not work

• “Setup was not finished — the consent is still open.” — open the connector and finish the steps.
• “Not linked yet — the office opens no accounts until you sign in to Google once.” — press “Link with Google” and finish the sign-in.
• “Switched off” — the platform has paused community replies; you can still see your connected sites and disconnect any of them.
• Anything else: ask your CEO, naming the site.

What your office does today

• Today your office does not ask whether you already have an account on a site. Where the site has a “Sign in with Google” button, it signs in with your linked Google account — so if you had an account there under another e-mail address, a second one is opened in your name, without a warning. Connect your existing accounts first; if it already happened, press “Disconnect” on the office’s row and connect yours with “Connect a site” before you approve another reply there.
• Today the office checks that your typed Gmail address matches the Google account you signed in with only when it first opens your Gmail for an activation e-mail — not when you sign in.
• Today, if the office once cannot read your Gmail, its next registrations use your connected business mailbox, or else your platform address, without asking you first: “We could not read your Gmail the last time we tried, so the office will use your platform address for the next registrations.”
• Today a site’s request for a code sent to your phone by text message is handed to you like a human check, but a request for your phone number alone is not: the office has no number to give and cannot finish that account — open it yourself and connect it.
• Today, when a sign-up form refuses the registration — a user name already taken, for example — the office does not try another name: “The site refused the registration.” Connect your own account there instead.
• This block changes when these do; the date at the bottom of the page tells you when it was last checked.