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Exporting Listings to Social Networks and Mailing Systems

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Exporting Listings to Social Networks and Mailing Systems
by Nicholas
2 days ago
N

Nicholas

Support Dept.

phpListings allows you to view any search results page as an RSS feed. This makes it easy to share your listings with social networks, mailing platforms, or other external services that support RSS.

With phpListings RSS feeds you can:

  • Create targeted feeds (latest, most popular, filtered by category/location).
  • Share listings to social networks automatically via Zapier, IFTTT, or Buffer.
  • Send listings to subscribers with Mailchimp, AWeber, Brevo, phpList, and more.
  • Export data into other apps and systems using automation tools or custom scripts.

This gives you endless possibilities to reuse your listing content across multiple platforms with no extra manual work.

 

1. How to Generate RSS Feeds

Every search results page in phpListings has an RSS version. You can get it in two ways:

1. Click the “RSS Feed” button on any search results page with your custom filters enabled.
2. Or manually append `&format=rss` (or `?format=rss` if no query string yet) to the search URL.

URL Pattern

Note: This section is optional. The software automatically generates the RSS URL when you use the “RSS Feed” button, so you don’t need to build it manually. However, the following details are helpful if you want to create more customized RSS outputs or if you plan to use a third-party script to generate requests to your directory automatically.

https://yourdomain.com/<listing-type-slug>/<category-slug>/<location-slug>?sort=<sort-key>&sort_direction=<sort-direction>&limit=<number>&format=rss
  • `<listing-type-slug>` – your listing type slug, e.g. `blog`, `jobs`, `real-estate`
  • `<category-slug>` – category filter (optional)
  • `<location-slug>` – location filter (optional)
  • `sort` – sorting method, e.g. `newest`, `oldest`, `highest-rated`, `most-popular` (optional)
  • `sort_direction` – sorting direction, e.g. `asc` for ascending and `desc` for descending (optional)
  • `limit` – number of items to show (1–100) (optional)
  • `format=rss` – required to output the feed

if you search for all listings within a listing type without filtering by category and location, please, use the following URL pattern:

https://yourdomain.com/<listing-type-slug>/search?sort=<sort-key>&limit=<number>&format=rss

Examples

Latest blog posts:
https://example.com/blog/search?sort=newest&format=rss
Most popular real estate in Helsinki (limit 25):
https://example.com/blog/real-estate/helsinki?sort=most-popular&limit=25&format=rss

Note: If you want, for example, the newest listings to appear first, keep in mind that results are initially sorted by the listing product position. Products with a lower position value are shown higher. For example, if you have a paid listing product with position 1 and a free product with position 5, then the newest paid listings will always appear before the free listings. The free listings will only be shown after all paid listings are displayed.

 

2. Exporting to Social Networks

Automation tools (no coding)

Zapier – Trigger: New item in RSS feed → Action: Post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), Instagram (via Buffer), Mastodon, etc.
IFTTT – Similar trigger/action model, supports most social networks.
dlvr.it / Buffer / SocialPilot – Dedicated RSS-to-social publishing services.

How it works:

Title → Post text
Link → URL back to your site
Image enclosure (from feed) → Social post image

You can schedule posts, add hashtags, and control formatting depending on the tool.

Custom script (for developers)

Fetch the RSS feed with PHP, Python, or Node.
Parse <item> entries (title, link, description, enclosure).
Post them via the social network’s API.
Keep track of GUIDs to avoid reposting the same listing.

 

3. Exporting to Mailing Systems

Many email platforms support RSS-to-email automation:

Mailchimp – Built-in RSS Campaign. Paste your feed URL, design a template, and Mailchimp will send emails automatically on a schedule (daily, weekly, monthly).
AWeber – “Blog Broadcasts” lets you send RSS updates as newsletters.
Brevo (Sendinblue) – Supports dynamic content imports from RSS.
ConvertKit – Use Zapier to connect RSS and auto-send via sequences.
phpList – Has an RSS plugin to create recurring campaigns from feeds.

This way, subscribers always receive fresh listings without manual work.

 

4. Other Automation Possibilities

Zapier / IFTTT to Apps – Send new listings to Slack, Discord, Trello, Google Sheets, etc.
WordPress – Import listings into a blog using an RSS-to-post plugin.
Custom Integrations – Since RSS is a standard XML, you can parse and display it anywhere.

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