Rockon Post Notifications for Telegram

Installation

The whole setup takes about five minutes. You need a Telegram account and a channel (or group) you administer. Everything below is also available inside the plugin under Rockon Notifications > Setup Guide.

Step 1: install and activate

1. Upload the rockon-post-notifications-telegram folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install the plugin from Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin.
2. Activate it.
3. A new Rockon Notifications menu appears in the admin sidebar. Open Rockon Notifications > Settings.

Step 2: create a Telegram bot and copy the token

The plugin posts to Telegram through a bot that belongs to you. Creating one is free and takes a minute:

1. Open Telegram (phone or desktop) and search for @BotFather – the official account with the blue verified tick. Or open https://t.me/BotFather in a browser.
2. Press Start, then send the command /newbot.
3. BotFather asks for a name. This is the display name shown next to your messages, for example My Site News. Spaces are allowed.
4. BotFather then asks for a username. It must be unique across Telegram and must end in bot, for example mysitenews_bot. If the name is taken, try another one.

5. BotFather replies with a message containing your token. It looks like this:

   123456789:AAHdqTcvCH1vGWJxfSeofSAs0K5PALDsaw

   The part before the colon is the bot ID, the part after it is the secret.

6. Copy the whole token, including the digits and the colon.

Keep the token private. Anyone who has it can post as your bot. If it ever leaks, send /revoke to BotFather to generate a new one, then paste the new token into the plugin.

Step 3: paste the token into WordPress

1. In Rockon Notifications > Settings, paste the token into the Bot token field.
2. Press Check Connection. The plugin asks Telegram who the bot is and replies with Connected to @yourbot when the token is valid. Unauthorized means the token was copied incorrectly or has been revoked.

Step 4: let the bot post in your channel

A brand new bot cannot post anywhere until you invite it. Pick the option that matches you:

Public channel (it has a t.me/name link)

1. Open your channel in Telegram.
2. Tap the channel name > Administrators > Add Administrator.
3. Search for your bot by its username (for example mysitenews_bot) and select it.
4. Leave the Post Messages permission enabled and save.
5. Your channel address is @yourchannelname.

Private channel (invite link only, no public username)

1. Add the bot as an administrator exactly as above.
2. Get the numeric chat ID. The quickest way: forward any message from the channel to @userinfobot, which replies with the ID. It starts with -100, for example -1001234567890.

Group (instead of a channel)

1. Open the group > Add members and add your bot.
2. Promote it to administrator so it can post reliably.
3. Get the group ID the same way, by forwarding a group message to @userinfobot. Group IDs are negative numbers too.

Step 5: enter the channel and test

1. Put @yourchannelname (public) or the numeric ID such as -1001234567890 (private channel or group) into the Channel / Chat ID field. Pasting a full https://t.me/yourchannel link also works, the plugin converts it for you.
2. Tick Send a Telegram message when a post is published.
3. Press Save Settings.
4. Press Send Test Message. A message should arrive in your channel within a second or two. If it does not, the exact reason Telegram gave is shown next to the button.

Step 6: write your message

Edit the Message template to say whatever you like and click the tags below it to insert post data. For example:

<b>{post_title}</b>
{post_excerpt}
Read more: {post_url}

Choose HTML formatting for bold, italic and links, or Plain text if you prefer no formatting. Publish a post and the message goes out automatically.