RSS Feed LinkedIn Publishing Pipeline

Creating an RSS Feed LinkedIn Publishing Pipeline

In this post, we will walk through creating a fully automated pipeline that reads an RSS feed and publishes updates directly to LinkedIn. This involves setting up an environment that can access LinkedIn's APIs, handle authentication using OAuth 2.0, and automate publishing via a simple Rust program. By the end, you’ll have a workflow that allows you to keep your audience updated automatically on LinkedIn.

1. Setting Up Your LinkedIn Developer Account

The first step is to register a LinkedIn application, which will give you the credentials required to interact with LinkedIn's APIs.

• Register Your App: Go to the LinkedIn Developer Portal and create an application.
• Configure OAuth: In the app settings, navigate to the "Auth" tab. Add your Redirect URIs (the URLs to which LinkedIn will redirect after the user authorizes the application).
• API Access: Ensure that you add permissions like w_member_social to allow publishing posts on behalf of a user or organization.

2. Understanding OAuth 2.0 Authentication

To interact with LinkedIn's API, you need an access token. LinkedIn uses the OAuth 2.0 flow to provide secure access to APIs. Here are the steps:

1. User Authorization: Redirect the user to LinkedIn's authorization URL:

   https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization
   

   Include the following parameters in the URL:

   • response_type=code
   • client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID
   • redirect_uri=YOUR_REGISTERED_REDIRECT_URI
   • state=UNIQUE_STATE_VALUE (for CSRF protection)
   • scope=w_member_social (to allow the application to post on behalf of the user)

   Example:

   https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI&state=UNIQUE_STATE_VALUE&scope=w_member_social
   

2. Get an Access Token: After the user authorizes the app, LinkedIn will redirect to your redirect URI with a code parameter. Use this code to request an access token:

   curl -X POST "https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/accessToken" \
     -d "grant_type=authorization_code" \
     -d "code=AUTHORIZATION_CODE" \
     -d "redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI" \
     -d "client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID" \
     -d "client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
   

   LinkedIn will return a JSON object containing the access token, which you will use to authenticate your API requests.

3. Extracting Data from an RSS Feed

To automate publishing, the first part of our pipeline is to extract content from an RSS feed. RSS feeds are XML-based documents containing data such as article titles and links.

Use a Rust library like rss or atom_syndication to parse the RSS feed:

use atom_syndication::Feed;
use reqwest::blocking::Client;

fn fetch_feed(feed_url: &str) -> Result<Feed, Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let client = Client::new();
    let response = client.get(feed_url).send()?.text()?;
    let feed = response.parse::<Feed>()?;
    Ok(feed)
}

4. Publishing to LinkedIn Using Rust

Once you have your access token and the RSS feed data, you can use LinkedIn's API to publish posts. Here is how you can construct a post payload and publish it.

First, create a Rust struct that represents the post body:

use serde::Serialize;

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct LinkedInPostBody<'a> {
    author: &'a str,
    lifecycle_state: &'a str,
    specific_content: SpecificContent<'a>,
    visibility: Visibility<'a>,
}

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct SpecificContent<'a> {
    #[serde(rename = "com.linkedin.ugc.ShareContent")]
    share_content: ShareContent<'a>,
}

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct ShareContent<'a> {
    share_commentary: ShareCommentary<'a>,
    share_media_category: &'a str,
}

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct ShareCommentary<'a> {
    text: &'a str,
}

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct Visibility<'a> {
    #[serde(rename = "com.linkedin.ugc.MemberNetworkVisibility")]
    visibility: &'a str,
}

You can use this struct to serialize the post body to JSON and send it using reqwest:

fn post_to_linkedin(post: &LinkedInPostBody, access_token: &str) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let client = Client::new();
    let url = "https://api.linkedin.com/v2/posts";
    let response = client
        .post(url)
        .bearer_auth(access_token)
        .json(post)
        .send()?;

    if response.status().is_success() {
        println!("Post successful!");
    } else {
        println!("Failed to post: {:?}", response.text()?);
    }

    Ok(())
}

5. Automating the Entire Pipeline

With the steps above in place, you can now combine them to create a fully automated LinkedIn publishing pipeline:

1. Fetch Feed: Periodically fetch the RSS feed.
2. Extract Content: Extract titles and links from the feed.
3. Check Published Status: Use a simple SQLite database to track what posts have already been published.
4. Publish New Posts: Publish new items to LinkedIn using the access token and LinkedInPostBody struct.

6. Security Considerations

• Client Secret Safety: Your LinkedIn client_secret should never be exposed publicly. Keep it safe, ideally in environment variables.
• OAuth State Parameter: Always use a unique state parameter when requesting user authorization to mitigate CSRF attacks.

7. Helpful Tools and Documentation

• LinkedIn API Documentation
• OAuth 2.0 Tools for testing OAuth flows.
• Rust crates: reqwest for HTTP requests, serde for JSON serialization, and atom_syndication for parsing RSS feeds.

Conclusion

With this guide, you should be able to create an automated pipeline to keep your LinkedIn audience updated with content from your RSS feed. This pipeline not only saves time but also ensures your audience always sees the latest updates.

If you have any questions or need further guidance, feel free to reach out or leave a comment below. Happy coding and sharing!