Create a Social Post

Thanks to Click Social Marketing, creating, scheduling, and publishing social posts to various social profiles and tracking the click activity is easy! This article will discuss how to create social posts, after the prerequisite steps of setting up a CNAME for social marketing and the necessary social profiles have been created.

NOTE: Before you can create Social Posts, a CNAME for social marketing must be set up, as well as setting up the connectors to post to various social profiles. Click here to learn how to set up a CNAME for social marketing. Click here to learn how to set up the various social profile connectors.

Goals

• Learn how to create a Social Post
• Learn how to schedule Social Posts
• Learn how to set up a recurring Social Post

Table of Contents

• Navigate to Social Posts
• Create a Campaign
• Create a New Post
• Publishing a Social Post

Navigate to Social Posts

When you are ready to create your Social Post, navigate to either Messaging > Social Platform or Messaging > Social Posts and then select Social Platform from the options:

This will open a new login window. Enter the email and password that was setup for your Account Owner in the Social Marketing Settings and click Sign In to continue to the Social Platform.

This will bring you into the Social Platform's main page.

Create a Campaign

Before you can create social posts, you will need to create a campaign to group and organize your posts and their analytics. To create a campaign, navigate to Publishing > Campaigns and select the New Campaign option.

You can then fill in a name for your Campaign and add any desired Tags to apply to it. The tags are used to group messages that have similarities in order to analyze them side by side and can be updated in the Campaign settings later.

Once you are done, select Create Campaign to create the campaign.

Creating a Social Post

After creating your campaign, you can then either select your campaign or navigate to Publishing > Calendar and select the New Post option to begin creating your post. The Post Editor opens as a full screen overlay in which you will set the details for this social post:

• The left side contains your content editor and post settings.
• The right side displays a live Preview (Desktop and Mobile).
• The header and footer remain sticky while scrolling.
• If you open an existing draft, the title will display Draft.

The Post Editor supports multiple working modes:

Full-Screen Mode (Default)

• Opens as a full overlay.
• Displays both the editor and live preview.
• Best for focused creation.

Compact Mode

• Hides the right-side preview.
• Floats on the left side of the screen.
• Draggable and resizable.
• Useful when referencing other parts of the platform.

Minimized Mode

• You can minimize up to 5 drafts or messages at once.
• Only one editor can be open at a time.
• Minimized posts are accessible from anywhere in the platform.
• If you already have 5 minimized drafts, you'll see a notification: "You have 5 minimized posts or messages. Save or post one to start a new draft."

1. Choose a Social Network

The Select Profile button at the top of the Post Editor will allow you to select which social profile and network you would like to the post to be published to. Click here to see an index of articles on how to set up the various social profiles in Marketing Automation.

2. Select Social Profiles

Clicking Select Profile will open a drop-down menu that allows you to select which Social Profile(s) on the selected Social Network you would like to post to. Profiles are searchable by name. You can add multiple profiles to post to at the same time by clicking the + icon next to a profile's name and you can remove selected profiles by selecting the X icon next to the profile.  

Frequently used profile combinations can be saved as Profile Groups.

3. Message contents

Use the text box to compose your message. This can include links, and the clicks on these links will be what is tracked and collected within your Dynamics environment. 

You can:

• Add text, hashtags, mentions, and links.
• Insert emojis.
• Rewrite text using AI Assist.

The Post Editor contains a unified emoji set. The preview will render emojis in each network's native style (e.g. Facebook, X).

AI Assist requires at least 30 characters. Options include:

• Rephrase
• Change tone
• Simplify
• Make longer
• Make shorter

Facebook Link images: When linking to a webpage in your Facebook post, you can select the image your post should use, however, if linking to your site, you will need to verify your site's domain with Facebook. Otherwise, the image shown in the post will be pulled from the page and not be the image that you set up here. 

The Post Editor contains a character counter. For most networks, the counter appears when you're within 100 characters of that network's character limit. The character counter turns yellow at 30 characters remaining, turns red at 0, and continues counting into negatives. X has its own character counter behavior depending on account type.

If you switch networks after adding content, Click Social validates your post and may prompt you if:

• Text will be trimmed.
• Media will be removed.
• Threads will be deleted (X).
• All content will be discarded.

4. Select Campaign

Select which Social Campaign you would like to associate the post with. The post will appear on the calendar for that specific campaign and all analytics from the post will also associate back to this campaign.

5. Add Media

Media behavior varies by network. 

LinkedIn, Facebook, and X

• Media button appears inline next to Emoji and AI Assist.
• Tooltips show network-specific limits:
  • LinkedIn: Video, PDF, or up to 20 images.
  • Facebook: Video, PDF, or up to 18 images.
  • X: Video, PDF, or up to 4 images.
• Images display in a grid:
  • Shows up to 6 by default.
  • Additional images appear under a "+X" overlay.
  • Drag to reorder.
  • Hover to remove, edit, or see warnings.

Image Editing

Click Edit Image to:

• Crop
• Adjust
• Apply filters
• Add alt text

You can reset or discard edits with confirmation prompts.

Instagram

You can choose between:

• Post (up to 10 images/videos)
• Story (1 image or video; no text)
• Reel (1 video only)

Special behaviors:

• Single video posts automatically convert to Reels.
• Switching formats may remove extra media and trigger confirmation dialogs.
• Reels include a Hide from Grid toggle.
• You can add a Location.

YouTube

YouTube posts require:

• Video Title (100-character limit)
• Description
• Visibility:
  • Public
  • Unlisted
  • Private
  • Video Tags
  • Playlists (disabled if multiple profiles selected)

Character validation applies to titles.

TikTok

• Requires a single video
• Post button remains disabled until media is added.

LinkedIn Polls

LinkedIn Polls allow you to ask questions and gather feedback directly from your audience. With Click Social, you can create, schedule, publish, and analyze LinkedIn Polls directly from the platform, helping you increase engagement and diversity your LinkedIn content strategy.

To learn more about creating LinkedIn Polls posts, please see here.

LinkedIn: First Comment with Post

You can schedule a first comment to be published immediately after your LinkedIn post goes live. This allows you to index external links or calls-to-action without impacting the post's organic reach.

How to Add a First Comment

1. In the Post Editor, select your LinkedIn Profile(s).
2. Scroll to the First Comment section.
3. Toggle the feature ON.
4. Enter your comment content.
5. Continue creating and scheduling your post as usual.

Once the post is successfully published, the first comment will be posted automatically.

What You Can Include

The First Comment field supports:

• Text, hashtags, and mentions.
• External links
• Emojis
• One image

Any links added to the comment will be automatically shortened and tracked by Click Social.

Please note:

• If the comment toggle is turned OFF, the comment will not be published.
• If the comment toggle is ON, and no comment text is entered, you can save the post as a draft, but cannot publish.

Approvals

• If approval workflows are enabled, the first comment is included in the approval review.

Live Preview

The right panel displays a real-time Preview.

• Switch between Desktop and Mobile tabs.
• Preview reflects:
  • Selected profile
  • Network
  • Media
  • Targeting settings
• If no profile is selected, a placeholder appears.

Network-Specific Settings

The Post Editor's settings area contains various sections. Depending on the network, additional options appear.

LinkedIn

• News Feed Targeting (company pages only)

Facebook

• Audience (Public or Targeted)
• News Feed Targeting
• Hide from Page toggle (when Target Audience is selected)

X

• Thread creation
• Character counter

Instagram

• Post type selection
• Location
• Hide from Grid (Reels)

YouTube

• Title
• Description
• Visibility
• Tags
• Playlists

Only relevant settings appear per network

Campaigns and Tags

Every post can be labeled.

Campaign

• Select one campaign.
• Search or create new campaigns directly.
• Last-used campaign is pre-selected.

Tags

• Add multiple tags.
• Search or create new tags (if permitted).
• Manage tags via settings.
• Clear All or Done options available.

Scheduling

Click the Schedule field to choose:

Publish Immediately

• Posts right away.
• Footer button displays Post Now

Set Time & Date

• Choose date and time
• Add multiple publish times.
• Time selection supports:
  • 15-minute increments
  • Manual entry
  • 24-hour notation
• If scheduled time passes before clicking Schedule, the post published immediately.

Add to Queue

• Publishes according to profile's preset queue.
• Provides link to manage queue settings.

When scheduling is selected, the footer button changes to Schedule.

Once your social post is scheduled or posted, you can navigate to Publishing > Calendar to view your social posts. Blue posts will represent social posts that have already sent, while red posts indicate posts that are scheduled, require approval, or have not yet been sent yet.

These details will also be captured in your Dynamics environment. Continue to the Social Post Reporting article for more information.

Advocacy (If Enabled)

If Advocacy is enabled for your account, you can create:

• An Advocacy Story
  OR
• An Advocacy Message 

Only one type per post. The Advocacy section expands to show:

• Media preview
• Title/description
• Publish and expiration time
• Board
• Topics
• Featured status

Approval Workflows (If Enabled)

If approval workflows are enabled in your account:

• Select one from the Approval dropdown.
• Only one workflow per post.
• Last-used workflow is pre-selected.
• Footer button changes to Send for Approval.

You can remove the selected workflow at any time.

Helpful Notes

• All scheduled posts publish according to the time zone set in your user profile.
• You can work on up to 5 minimized drafts at once.
• The Post Editor prevents many posting errors before publish.
• Drafts remain accessible anywhere in the platform.
• Branded Links in Social Posts: Links added to your social posts will be converted to okt.to links for tracking if they start with http or https. But a link beginning with www (or something other than http/https) won’t convert to okt.to.