Connecting Telegram to Goji

Telegram is quick to connect and costs nothing, which makes it a sensible first channel if you are trying automatic publishing for the first time. Everything happens through a bot — a free account you create inside Telegram, which then posts on your behalf or receives messages for you. There is no review process, no business verification and no waiting.

What connecting Telegram gives you

• Automatic posts to a channel or group. New articles are posted with their picture, headline and a link back to your site.
• Messages in your inbox. People who write to your bot appear in Goji, and your replies go back through Telegram.
• Reach without an algorithm. Telegram shows subscribers everything you post, in order, which is unusual and worth having.
• No cost. Bots, channels and groups are free, however many subscribers you gather.

Before you start

You need a Telegram account and about five minutes. You will create two things: a bot, and somewhere for it to post. Both live inside Telegram itself — nothing is bought or registered anywhere else.

Decide first whether you want a channel or a group. A channel broadcasts to subscribers who cannot reply to each other, which suits announcements and article feeds. A group is a conversation. Most businesses publishing articles want a channel.

Step one: create the bot

1. In Telegram, search for @BotFather — the official account for making bots — and open a chat with it.
2. Send /newbot.
3. Give it a display name, which is what people see, and then a username ending in bot.
4. BotFather replies with a token: a long string of letters, numbers and a colon. Copy it.

Treat that token exactly like a password. Anyone holding it can post as your bot and read what it receives, so never paste it into a group chat, a screenshot or an email. If it does leak, send /revoke to BotFather and reconnect with the new token.

While you are there, /setuserpic and /setdescription let you give the bot a picture and a short description. Neither affects the connection, but both make the bot look like part of your business rather than an anonymous account.

Step two: give the bot somewhere to post

1. Open the Telegram channel or group you want to post to, or create one.
2. Open its administrators list and add your bot as an administrator, with permission to post messages.

A bot cannot post anywhere it has not been added as an administrator. This single step is what most people miss, and it produces the commonest symptom of all: a connection that saves perfectly and then never posts anything.

Step three: connect it in Goji

1. Open Channels from the sidebar and choose Telegram.
2. Paste the bot token into the form.
3. Give the destination channel or group, then save.

Goji checks the token with Telegram as you save, so you find out immediately whether it is right rather than discovering it days later when an article fails to publish.

If something goes wrong

• The token is rejected. It was copied incompletely — the colon near the start matters — or it was revoked in BotFather, which invalidates the old one. Ask BotFather for it again.
• Nothing appears in the channel. The bot is not an administrator there, or it lacks permission to post messages. Add it properly and the next article will arrive.
• Messages to the bot are not reaching my inbox. Inside a group, a bot only sees every message when privacy mode is off; BotFather can change that with /setprivacy.

Common questions

Can it post to my personal Telegram account? No. Bots post to channels and groups, never to a person's own timeline.

Can one bot serve several channels? Yes. Add it as an administrator wherever you want it and connect each destination separately in Goji.

Does Telegram charge for any of this? No.

Can I rename the bot later? Yes, through BotFather. The token and the connection are unaffected.