A financial services company needed an automated solution to keep its WordPress website synchronized with its growing YouTube channel of investment commentary and market analysis videos. Manual video uploads were time-consuming and prone to delays, preventing timely content delivery to their audience.

Solution

84EM created a custom WordPress plugin that creates a bidirectional integration between YouTube and WordPress. The system automatically polls YouTube every six hours for new content and imports videos as WordPress posts with complete metadata.

The plugin eliminates manual data entry by synchronizing video titles, descriptions, thumbnails, and duration information. Content is automatically categorized based on video length, distinguishing between full videos and shorts.

Technical Implementation

• YouTube Data API v3 integration that authenticates with Google Cloud services and retrieves channel content.
• Custom post type architecture for video content with specialized fields for video IDs, thumbnails, and duration tracking.
• Automated scheduling system using WordPress cron to poll for new videos every six hours without manual intervention.
• WP-CLI command suite for manual operations, including backfill of historical videos, image processing, and database management.
• Featured image automation that downloads and attaches high-resolution YouTube thumbnails to WordPress posts.
• Duplicate prevention logic that tracks imported videos to avoid creating redundant posts.
• Activity logging system with 60-day retention for monitoring API operations and troubleshooting issues.
• Admin dashboard interface for API credential management, connection status monitoring, and manual control options.

Results

• Eliminated manual video uploads, saving hours of content management time each week.
• Reduced content publishing delays from hours to minutes with automated six-hour polling cycles.
• Improved content consistency by ensuring all video metadata, descriptions, and thumbnails are accurately synchronized.
• Enhanced SEO performance with properly formatted video content and featured images for search engine indexing.
• Enabled bulk operations through WP-CLI commands, allowing historical video imports and maintenance tasks.
• Provided operational visibility with comprehensive logging and API status monitoring for proactive troubleshooting.