Hello, fellow bloggers out there! I wanted to take a minute to share some new-found knowledge with you. I am the first to admit, when it comes to social media I am the worst! That, however, is about to change. With the help of my new Social Media manager app and a couple of my other tried and trues I have managed to stockpile tons of great content really fast. This way I will never run out of content again! I thought I would share with you my new trick on how to make tons of social media posts fast!
You will need a few things you will need to get started.
What You Will Need to Make Tons of Social Media Posts Fast
Get Social Media Manager
If you do not have a social media manager you will need one. I recommend SocialBee.io, it is AMAZING. It has tons of great features and so many ways to upload and organize content for all of the most popular social media platforms. It even interfaces with some great 3rd party apps to give you even more flexibility. There are tons of others out there and offer a variety of features. This is the one that has worked the best for me.
You can read more about why I love SocialBee.io here. (link coming soon)
A Program for spreadsheets
For one of the ways to make posts fast you will need access to a spreadsheet. Literally any program will do. You can use excel, numbers, or google sheets which are readily available and will give you what you need. I, however, like to nerd it up a bit. I use an Airtable for my posts. Airtable is my nerdy obsession that is my godsend for organizing my blog and everything to do with it. I like Airtable for this application because of its robust filtering. You do not need this for this trick to work. I just like the extra organization and since I already do everything in for my blog in Airtable it just keeps me more organized.
You can read more about my love of Airtable and how I use it to organize my blogs here.
Hosted Photos and Links
The one other thing you need for this trick is to have your images online already somewhere. Not on your computer. There needs to be a link to the image. This is easy with a self-hosted WordPress, all of your images in your media library have a link to that image. This is what I will be using in this tutorial. You will also need some links. Links to your posts, articles, gifs you like, videos whatever kind of link you want to share.
Let’s Get Started Making Tons of Social Media Posts Fast
There is a ton of ways to add content to SocialBee. They are all handy and great. I go into more detail on those in my review of the app but this tutorial is about one way, in particular, that helped me make tons of content for my platforms in a snap. It is with the use of a CSV file and SocialBee’s CSV importer. Let’s get right into it.
I will be using SocialBee.io in this tutorial. I know that many other platforms offer something similar if you use something else you will have to look into how this is done on yours. The basics are the same.
Step One: Set Up Your CSV File
The first thing you will need is your CSV file. You can download the sample file from SocialBee from the CSV importer screen and just erase the content in it. That is the easiest way to set it up. If you wish, use this file and move on to the next step. You just need the basic file to do this. If you are interested in the advanced way continue on.
The reason I took it a step further is because when using the SocialBee importer you have to choose which category you are wanting to upload all of the posts you created that are in your one CSV file. By adding this extra step as I add posts from different categories I have filters them and make a file per category, this allows me to upload that file to its category and use the auto-approve. If you use the basic file and have posts that go into more than one category you will need to remember to go edit the category after it imports.
If you are choosing to use a different program but still would like to keep them separate you could try your hand at its filtering options or you could also set up a different “sheet” for each category and then add your posts to the different sheets. Whatever works the best for you, do that.
Setting up an Airtable
I used the sample file and imported it into my Airtable. From there I added a column, made it a single select field, and then added all of my categories from SocialBee. I then made a new view for each category and hid the category field.
I made it even easier for you, I set up my table as a template you can just copy mine and update your categories! Here is the link to the template.
Now that it’s all set up it lets get making content.
Step 3: Add social media content to your CSV file
Here is the real work but it’s easy, I promise.
The first column of the file is where you place the text of the post. If you want to share a link that will not automatically generate a preview include the link here too. If you enter returns the CSV will remember them thankfully.
The second column is where you add a link, if you want to share a link to a post or a site or anything you would put that here. It will generate a preview automatically, whatever preview that site uses. On your blog posts this is usually the feature image.
The third column is for images. This is where you put the URL for whatever image you want to to share with that post. The easiest way to do this is find the image and use the “copy image address” option when you right click. Be sure you have the rights to sharing the image though!
The forth column lets you input URLS to gifts and the last column is for videos from YouTube or Vimeo.
Keep in mind this table only supports URLs so don’t try sticking images or other things in the boxes, it won’t work.
Let’s Try a Couple Social Media Post Types
First I open a post I want to create content for. I like to have my Airtable open right next to it.
A link Post
The first post I will add is a link post, I am going to write a caption and then add the link to the post in the link column and choose which category it will go in. This post will use whatever the feature image is for a preview so I am all done with that one.
A Post with a Link and Photo
On to the next. Since I have a travel blog and I post a ton of my old photos I like to share those photos along with the blog post, So I will create a post that links to this post with all the different images from it. Below is an example.
Here I added a caption about our first day and then put the link in the text column. This will make sure it does not generate a preview. Then I added a link to the image by right clicking the image and choosing “copy image address” and putting that in the in imageURLs column. When that posts is posted it will show my caption with the link and then the image that is linked.
A Photo Post
I repeat this for all other images in the post. Then I duplicate all of these posts and edit the caption to only include what is in the image and have no links associated. Since I have a travel blog I like to post just images as well. This also means I get the show that images twice and it makes for two full posts on social media. Thanks to the SocialBee category option and the ability to shuffle posts within the category the image isn’t shared back to back so it mixes it up well.
After I have used all of the images on the post I will copy any video URLs I have if they are not already in my rotation and then I finish up with any other posts that might be related to this post. This might be a question or fact related or maybe an article I saw. I place those in the proper columns. Once I have all of the posts I want for this post its time to export.
Step 4: Exporting the CSV files
If you went the easy route this is just a matter of hitting export in the chosen program and choosing .csv file for the export.
If you choose the Airtable category way here is what you do.
From the views tab choose the category to export.
Then choose the option to export the CSV.
Repeat for all of the categories. Airtable is nice and appends the category to the file name when it downloads so you know which is which.
Step 5: Importing the CSV files
You are almost done! The final step in making social media posts fast is to open SocialBee and go to the “import CSV tab in the content area. Choose which platforms you want to post these posts to and the category then browse to the file you downloaded in step 4. You can auto approve here or you can disable that if you want to go edit each one, I just approve them. Hit Import. It may take some time depending on how many posts there are, the banner at the top will let know once it’s complete and then you wait for the posts to populate in their categories.
After the upload is complete feel free to check out all your hard work in the Categories section. Here you can also shuffle the posts if you want to change up the order. I do this after each upload so it mixes up all the posts and content.
Step 6: Rejoice on How Many Posts You have in Queue!
That is it! The first time you do it it is a little tough. Once you have done it though you can see how fast it can be! The last post I did this for I ended up with 25 posts and it took me less than a half-hour. Needless to say, I have upped my Social Media game thanks to SocialBee.io and Airtable!!
I hope this helps you make tons of social media posts fast and will help you as much as it helped me! Questions or comments leave them below!