Are you seeking to create a extra environment friendly social media workflow?
Social media managers have a troublesome gig, typically juggling a number of accounts, managing advanced campaigns, and collaborating with stakeholders.
Coordinating all these transferring components might be time-consuming and overwhelming, however there are just a few easy methods to make your workflow extra environment friendly.
Let’s check out the highest 7 tricks to create an efficient social media workflow.
Bonus: Obtain our bundle of free customizable social media workflow templates and arrange a transparent approval course of to your workforce in minutes.
A social media workflow is a system for managing your social media publish creation, publication, and promotion. This consists of duties like drafting posts, scheduling them to publish at particular occasions, approving content material earlier than sharing it along with your followers, and measuring efficiency by analyzing the outcomes.
In some instances, you will have a number of social media workflows. These can embrace:
- Primary social media workflows
- Social media posting workflows
- Social media content material workflows
- Social media approval workflows
Every workflow streamlines your social media course of movement and ensures that every publish is accomplished constantly and effectively.

An efficient social media workflow ensures that each publish is well-crafted, well timed, strategic, and aligned along with your model tips. It additionally helps to maintain your workforce keep organized and on job.
When all mandatory steps are specified by advance, it takes the stress out of content material creation and ensures consistency to your model and compliance with industry-specific rules.
Different advantages of making a social media workflow embrace:
- Improved effectivity and productiveness: A well-designed workflow eliminates guesswork, saves time, and reduces the chance of errors.
- Greater-quality content material: Clear workflows guarantee your content material is correct, up-to-date, and presents the absolute best reflection of your model.
- Better accountability: By assigning duties to particular workforce members and setting deadlines, everybody is aware of what they’re accountable for. This helps promote collaboration whereas lowering redundancy and duplication of effort.
- Higher useful resource allocation: A transparent overview of all duties lets you handle sources, like time and price range, higher.
- Elevated visibility: A social media workflow ensures that content material is shared throughout all channels on time, serving to to extend its attain and visibility.
- Improved model security: With a social media workflow in place, you possibly can make certain that the suitable individuals in your workforce test each piece of content material in opposition to your model and compliance tips earlier than approving it for publication.
- Higher measurement of outcomes: With a social media workflow in place, it’s simpler to measure the outcomes of your campaigns. This additionally lets you make extra knowledgeable selections concerning future content material methods.
Whereas there isn’t a one-size-fits-all in the case of social media workflows, there are just a few widespread varieties you should utilize as a place to begin.
Primary social media workflow
A fundamental social media workflow ought to contain your whole day-to-day actions. Every might be damaged down into a number of broad levels.
The ten steps of a fundamental social media workflow are:
- Ideation: Arising with concepts to your posts or social media campaigns.
- Content material sourcing: Gathering or creating the visible belongings and sources to your posts.
- Copywriting: Writing captions or marketing campaign slogans.
- Revisions: Copyediting and remodeling primarily based on suggestions.
- Approvals: From each inner and exterior stakeholders.
- Scheduling posts: On the optimum time and date for max engagement.
- Submit promotion: Implementing paid and natural methods to spice up posts.
- Monitoring: Monitoring efficiency and engagement as soon as posts are stay.
- Neighborhood administration and customer support: Responding to feedback and messages, routing customer support inquiries.
- Optimization: Making every day content material changes.
Not your normal artistic self? Don’t sweat it—you possibly can’t be 100% on 100% of the time 🥱
Simply confer with our social media toolkit everytime you want recent concepts. It’s the simplest technique to get impressed and publish content material you’re happy with. Get your artistic mojo again https://t.co/I5FncKqXkx pic.twitter.com/Zxj8czrkc3
— Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite) March 30, 2023
Social media posting workflow
Social media posting workflows contain the creation and scheduling of content material throughout platforms.
The eight steps of a social media posting workflow are:
- Ideation: Arising with concepts for brand new social media posts. Keep in mind, you possibly can all the time discover recent concepts utilizing OwlyWriter AI or Hootsuite’s Inspiration characteristic.
- Content material sourcing: Together with analysis and discovering related images, animation, and video belongings.
- Drafting: Writing copy and designing visuals.
- Modifying: Spell checking, copyediting, and reviewing all visuals.
- Approval: Acquiring settlement from stakeholders.
- Scheduling: Setting the content material to publish at particular occasions or intervals.
- Monitoring and reporting: Monitoring efficiency after posts go stay.
- Advert-hoc posting: Even the best-laid content material plans are not often good, so ad-hoc posting lets you reply shortly to developments and publish well timed content material when mandatory.

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Social media approval workflow
Approvals are the spine of any profitable social media workflow. With no structured approval course of, you might publish content material that doesn’t align along with your model. Or, even worse, doesn’t adjust to {industry} rules.
The 4 steps of a social media approval workflow are:
- Ideation: Gathering concepts. Take into accout, marketing campaign and publish concepts might have approval earlier than being despatched to the artistic workforce.
- Creation: The artistic workforce develops and designs content material in accordance with the agreed-upon idea.
- Evaluation: The content material is reviewed by numerous stakeholders (e.g., the advertising workforce, authorized division, outdoors purchasers, and so forth.) to verify it meets the model’s requirements and any relevant rules.
- Approval: As soon as all stakeholders have given their approval, the content material is able to be posted.
Content material batching workflow
Content material batching is the method of making a number of items of content material without delay after which scheduling them for launch over a set interval. This lets you plan forward and get content material out regularly, preserving your model top-of-mind to your followers.
The eight steps of a content material batching workflow are:
- Ideation: Brainstorming content material for a set time period, typically one week or one month.
- Calendar creation: Making a content material calendar to your timeline, and get it authorized earlier than content material creation begins.
- Content material sourcing: Gathering all mandatory belongings for post-creation.
- Content material creation: Creating posts primarily based on the authorized content material calendar. This consists of copywriting and graphic design.
- Revision: Modifying the content material as wanted to make sure accuracy and high quality.
- Approval: Reviewing and approving all content material earlier than it’s revealed.
- Scheduling: Scheduling the authorized items of content material to be launched at pre-determined occasions.
- Analytics and optimization: Monitoring analytics from every bit of content material and optimizing future content material.
Able to arrange your personal social media workflows? We’ve put collectively a set of simple to make use of, absolutely customizable templates that can assist you get began.
Bonus: Obtain our bundle of free customizable social media workflow templates and arrange a transparent approval course of to your workforce in minutes.
After you have a fundamental understanding of the social media workflow course of, it’s time to begin constructing out your personal workflow.
Listed here are some ideas that can assist you create environment friendly and high-quality workflows.
1. Set up roles and duties
Social media workflows typically contain a number of individuals, so it’s essential to outline roles and duties. Expectations, deadlines, and accountability of every function must be clearly outlined from the beginning.
Listed here are just a few widespread roles and their duties:
- Social media supervisor: The function of social media managers consists of managing social media channels every day, creating profitable social media methods, and guaranteeing seamless social media workflows.
- Copywriter: Copywriters are accountable for creating participating posts and captions for social media channels.
- Designer: Creator of graphics, keeper of name tips, and accountable for producing visible content material that meets the social media supervisor’s expectations.
- Editor: The editor evaluations all content material created by content material creators earlier than sending it for approval.
- Neighborhood supervisor: Neighborhood managers work together with the viewers, reply to feedback and messages, monitor for unfavourable sentiment, and reply buyer questions.
- Approver: The approver evaluations all content material created by content material creators earlier than posting on social media channels. This may increasingly contain a number of ranges of administration and out of doors stakeholders.
- Analyst: Analysts monitor and consider metrics to grasp what works and what doesn’t. In addition they produce reviews for the workforce on an ongoing foundation.
- Authorized: Authorized groups provide a remaining evaluate of content material earlier than it goes stay and make sure that posted content material complies with the corporate’s tips.
Each social media workforce operates uniquely, so not all of those roles might be related to your wants. Nevertheless, your workforce is structured, you should definitely set clear expectations to maintain everybody on the identical web page.
2. Be clear on the foundations of your {industry}
Regulatory compliance is important for industries like finance, healthcare, or authorities to correctly keep a social media presence. Earlier than beginning any social media administration workflow, you first want to grasp any rules and greatest practices that have to be adopted (e.g. HIPAA in healthcare).
This consists of defining disclosure necessities for sponsored posts, understanding the authorized implications of utilizing user-generated content material (UGC), preserving information of all communications, and so forth. It’s additionally essential to pay attention to any restrictions on using sure hashtags or phrases that could be deemed inappropriate in your {industry}.
Learn up on social media compliance and compliance instruments earlier than getting began.
3. Use a social media calendar to plan forward
Content material calendars allow you to plan, monitor, and handle your content material all through the month. You may map out the matters, frequency of posts and approval timeline to make sure all content material is on model and in compliance with {industry} requirements.
Making a content material calendar upfront additionally offers you the pliability to schedule posts forward of time, which saves time and sources all through the month. This lets you focus extra on creating new content material or participating along with your target market–as an alternative of worrying about when to publish content material.

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4. Be certain everybody is aware of the method
Ideally, your social media posting workflow must be as environment friendly and arranged as potential. Writing down your course of in a normal working process (SOP) ensures new workers, purchasers, and stakeholders perceive the required steps.
And, that your whole workflows are simply repeatable throughout purchasers, social media platforms, and campaigns.
A social media workflow SOP ought to embrace the next data:
- The roles and duties of every particular person concerned within the course of.
- The main points of how posts are created, reviewed, and revealed.
- Any guidelines for particular varieties of content material or model tips.
- Insurance policies concerning when posts must be authorized or rejected.
- Directions on find out how to measure social media efficiency.
- All authorized, compliance, and regulatory necessities.
By creating a transparent and concise SOP to your social media posting workflow, you possibly can make sure that everybody concerned within the course of is on the identical web page. This helps to streamline collaboration between workforce members, reduce errors, and maintain your organization compliant with relevant rules.
5. Keep safe
Safety ought to all the time be top-of-mind when creating a social media workflow. Make it possible for solely trusted staff have entry to passwords and different confidential data, and take measures similar to two-step authentication or encryption to guard knowledge from being leaked.
Telephone? Account? You get it… 😄
🔒 Profile → Settings → Safety → Two-factor authentication 🔒 pic.twitter.com/DEaIClhYIb
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) March 1, 2023
Moreover, it’s essential to arrange a sequence of command in order that posts are authorized by the suitable individuals earlier than they go stay. This can assist make sure that your model voice and messaging keep constant and on-brand whereas stopping confidential data from moving into the fallacious fingers.
With a social media administration instrument like Hootsuite, you possibly can arrange customized permissions and approval workflows, and all the time maintain your channels safe and on model.
Social media monitoring instruments also can act as early warning programs to provide you with a warning within the occasion of suspicious exercise like posts from unauthorized accounts. Regulate all of your social channels and assign somebody to test that every one posts are reputable.
Often auditing your social media workflows, privateness settings, entry, and publishing privileges may also help cut back danger and keep a constant model picture.
6. Use a unified social media inbox
Social media administration goes past creating, posting, and measuring the efficiency of content material — your workforce additionally has to observe and reply to non-public messages and feedback.
To make it possible for all interactions are routed and dealt with accordingly, use a cross-platform social media inbox that helps job assignments and standing monitoring.
Hootsuite Inbox helps groups arrange customized workflows that bridge the hole between social media engagement and customer support — and handle all social media messages in a single place. This consists of:
- Non-public messages and DMs
- Public messages and posts in your profiles
- Darkish and natural feedback
- Mentions
- Emoji reactions
… and extra.
The all-in-one agent workspace makes it simple to
- Monitor the historical past of any particular person’s interactions along with your model on social media (throughout your accounts and platforms), giving your workforce the context wanted to personalize replies
- Add notes to prospects’ profiles (Inbox integrates with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics)
- Deal with messages as a workforce, with intuitive message queues, job assignments, statuses, and filters
- Monitor response occasions and CSAT metrics
Plus, Inbox comes with useful automations:
- Automated message routing
- Auto-responses and saved replies
- Routinely triggered buyer satisfaction surveys
- AI-powered chatbot options
7. Maintain it easy
Your social media administration workflow must be designed with simplicity in thoughts. The extra advanced it’s, the extra seemingly your workforce is to make errors and miss key steps.
Maintain issues easy by prioritizing the important steps wanted for posting content material. For instance, it must be clear to your workforce that every one copy must be authorized earlier than it may be posted. Or, that publish graphics have to be authorized internally as a result of they are often proven to the shopper.
Social media workflows solely turn into sophisticated in case you allow them to. So, begin by mapping out the essential steps in your workflow and approval course of, then add particulars as wanted.
Don’t neglect to create a system for monitoring and measuring the efficiency of your workflows, similar to by way of shopper suggestions or inner surveys, so you possibly can monitor success and make any mandatory changes.
8. Be versatile and adapt as wanted
Social media workflows must be versatile and adaptable as your enterprise grows or modifications. Your workforce might have to regulate who’s accountable for what roles and duties. Or, how typically sure duties or duties have to be accomplished.
As platforms evolve and new ones turn into obtainable, your workflow could have to be up to date or adjusted. Be able to reassess and adapt as wanted in an effort to keep on prime of the most recent developments and greatest practices.
Social media workflow instruments
Able to make your social media advertising course of movement like water? Listed here are one of the best social media workflow instruments that can assist you get began.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes social media workflows and approvals simple, with a full suite of instruments that can assist you create, handle and approve posts. From content material planning to post-publication evaluate and evaluation, Hootsuite presents all the pieces you want in a single handy dashboard.
Crew members can draft, edit and approve content material–all within the Hootsuite dashboard. Approval options can be found in all Enterprise and Enterprise plans, whereas the Crew Plan is designed for smaller groups who need assistance managing easy social media workflows.
Permissions may also be assigned to Hootsuite customers, to assist management the messages despatched out by your social accounts. Customers who’re assigned the Restricted, Responder, or Customized function with the “Publish Message with Approval” permission should obtain approval for his or her posts earlier than they’re revealed. This helps you make sure that solely high quality content material reaches your followers and prospects.

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Google Sheets
For these simply beginning out, Google Sheets may also help you create a easy social media workflow. You should use it to arrange and monitor the progress of posts that want approval, assign duties to workforce members, and retailer another related data.
When approvals are wanted, tag workforce members to evaluate posts, and embrace a column for feedback on every publish. This manner, everybody can shortly see what’s being posted and what has been authorized.
Take into accout, not everybody retains their Google Suite notifications turned on. So, you could have to comply with up by way of Slack or e mail to make sure duties and deadlines are met.
No extra notifications please 💅 pic.twitter.com/kGmXTlXdG9
— Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite) February 13, 2023
Construct a successful social media advertising technique with much less effort and time. Use Hootsuite’s social media approval options to verify none of your posts fall by way of the cracks. Assign work to your teammates, get notifications when content material must be edited, and supply suggestions to one another — all from one dashboard. Attempt it free at this time.
Do it higher with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media instrument. Keep up to the mark, develop, and beat the competitors.