If you work with multiple clients, manage various locations, or run social for a brand with strict guidelines, an approval workflow is a must. But where do you even start? Keep reading and we’ll walk you through creating a social media approval workflow step by step.
We’ve all been there. A social post goes live with a typo, wrong information, or worse, content that doesn’t align with your brand voice. These facepalm moments are often preventable with a social media approval workflow.
A social media approval workflow moves content through a set review stage before publishing. This way you can make sure everything meets quality and brand standards. If you work with multiple clients, manage various locations, or run social for a brand with strict guidelines, an approval workflow is a must.
But where do you even start? Keep reading and we’ll walk you through creating a social media approval workflow step by step.
1. Identify who plays a role in the approval process
Who needs to review your Instagram post before it goes live? Defining your approval squad is step one. Without clear roles, you’re setting yourself up for trouble: posts that go back and forth between stakeholders, last-minute changes, and the blame game when things go wrong.
Map out exactly who needs to review content and in what order. Do account managers tackle the first round of reviews, then creative directors, and finally, clients? Maybe your legal or compliance teams need to weigh in on a certain statement. Documenting everyone’s roles creates accountability and a clear path from creation to approvals and publication. It’s much easier to prevent bottlenecks when everyone knows exactly what they’re responsible for (and when).
Assign roles and responsibilities
It’s Friday afternoon, and a time-sensitive campaign needs approval before the weekend. The social copy is written, but without clear guidelines about who has the final say, the ad goes through endless rounds of edits as different team members request changes. The constant revisions delay the delivery timeline, frustrating the client and the marketing team.
This is a familiar reality for many social media management agencies and corporate teams. Without defined roles in the approval process, chaos reigns. People get stuck in never-ending feedback loops and deadlines pass by. It all sets the stage for those face-palm moments. Sometimes cringe moments even turn into brand nightmares that require crisis communication strategies.
Most social media approval processes include these key players:
- Content creators: These are the social media managers creating posts, sourcing visuals, and aligning messaging with strategy. They upload content, suggest optimal posting times, and send posts for approval.
- Reviewers/editors: This crew checks for tone, grammar, and brand consistency before content moves forward.
- Legal/compliance: If you work in a regulated industry like finance or healthcare, this step is key to making sure content meets industry guidelines and includes the necessary disclaimers.
- Final approvers: Approvers give the green light to release content for publishing. Your approvers might be department heads, marketing leads, or clients.
- Schedulers/posters: They make sure content gets posted at the right times.
Your organization may not have all of these roles—or some people may even wear multiple hats, and that’s perfectly normal. The most important thing is creating a workflow that balances accuracy and efficiency.
2. Establish content guidelines
If you’re tired of long review cycles and endless revisions, you need crystal-clear content guidelines. This checklist helps reviewers assess whether content hits the mark.
Include specifics on your brand voice, visual style, content goals, and other non-negotiables like legal disclaimers. With well-documented content guidelines, you’ll get less vague feedback and more valuable perspectives that help you follow brand standards. Guidelines also help content creators nail content on the first try so they can stick to the posting schedule.
Centralize content assets and deliverables
Nothing slows down approvals like scattered resources. Graphic designers shouldn’t have to go hunting to find approved logos or brand color palettes. Social media content creators need easy access to the hashtag strategy.
Social media tools can provide asset repositories that prevent these roadblocks, giving your team instant access to pre-approved assets. Sked Social is just one tool that can make it easy to create a centralized media library. With Sked, you can upload and organize approved images, videos, logos, and graphics in one searchable location. It’s accessible to everyone on your team across all accounts—no roadblocks.
3. Outline the content creation process
Haphazard creation processes and consistency clash like oil and water. Without a clear roadmap, deadlines are suggestions and quality is variable. Your team members will waste time figuring out what happens next instead of creating the best possible content.
For most teams, the content creation process usually looks something like this:
- Ideation: Brainstorming concepts that align with strategy
- Creation: Drafting copy and designing or recording visuals
- Initial review: Getting feedback from stakeholders
- Revisions: Putting the final touches on the post
- Final approval: The last hurdle content must overcome
- Scheduling and publishing: Sending content out into the wild
Once you outline your process, set reasonable timeframes. How long does a designer need to create an Instagram carousel? When should legal receive compliance-sensitive social media posts?
Determine when the review stage will happen
The perfect timing for approvals doesn’t exist—reviews vary depending on what you’re posting and who you’re posting it for.
You might create posts for a client who wants to approve the social media content calendar before you create posts. Maybe you have a client who prefers reviewing right before you schedule content. Or maybe you work for a multi-location brand and have a hands-off marketing director.
Whatever your situation, consider the client or stakeholder’s comfort level, content complexity, and past approval patterns. High-stakes campaigns or regulated industries need earlier and more frequent touchpoints. Evergreen content might require lighter oversight. You might have to experiment to find the right balance.
Collaborate effortlessly, save time and spend less
Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
Get Started for FREE4. Set a timeline for content approvals
Asking for approvals ASAP might get your point across, but it’s not a sustainable strategy. Without concrete timelines, your scheduled content calendar will unravel with posts sitting in approval limbo.
Set specific timelines for each review stage. That might look like 24 hours for initial feedback and 48 hours for final approval. Giving reviewers deadlines holds them accountable and helps everyone prioritize their other responsibilities. Be sure to factor in buffer time for unexpected revisions or when a main reviewer is on vacation.
Decide how approvers will communicate their decisions. Will they use Sked’s no-login approval links to provide feedback directly on posts? Should they tag specific team members when requesting changes? Make these protocols clear so your posts don’t get stuck in the approvals dead zone.
Communicate deadlines
If you want to keep your content calendar moving (because of course you do!), you need clear deadlines. When sending content for review via Sked Social, use the platform’s tagging feature to tag specific team members for approval. Automated email notifications serve as their first reminder. Always include specific deadlines (“Please approve by Thursday at 5 pm”) and explain what you plan to do if a reviewer misses the deadline (“We’ll delay posting until client approval is received.”).
For important content, schedule a follow-up reminder 24 hours before the deadline. This dual-notification approach respects everyone’s busy schedule while stressing the importance of the timeline.
5. Use tools to streamline the content approval process
Remember the dark ages of approval workflows? Manual approval processes create confusion—email screenshots, feedback scattered across Slack, spreadsheets tracking who approved what. You might find yourself searching for lost feedback, sorting through old versions, and not knowing which posts are ready to publish.
Social media tools provide clarity. You don’t have to go looking through email threads to find client feedback or wonder if the legal team ever saw your post. These tools centralize the entire process so you can track approval status in real time, see revision history, and make sure everyone is reviewing the same version of the content.
With the right social media tools, you can:
- Prevent off-brand or non-compliance posts from going live
- Reduce manual back-and-forth by streamlining communication
- Ensure accountability and clarity in multi-step approval processes
- Speed up content publishing without bottlenecks
Sked Social: The ultimate social media approval tool
Sked Social makes all of these things possible. You can turn approval processes into a streamlined operation your team and clients will love. Sked’s customizable approval workflows adapt to fit any business process, whether you need a simple two-step approval or complex multi-stage reviews.
And our cherry on top? Sked’s no-login approval portal reduces the friction you normally encounter when getting feedback from external stakeholders. You won’t have to ask clients to create an account. When you send a post preview, they can provide their direct feedback. This feature alone massively cuts down on the back-and-forth that stifles your content marketing strategy.
Revisions are inevitable. But with Sked’s internal commenting and tagging features, feedback goes directly to the right team members. Plus, everyone has access to a centralized asset library with pre-approved media, so you can ensure on-brand content all around.
Learn more about Sked’s customizable approval workflow tool.
6. Monitor the content approval workflow
Most approval processes aren’t set in stone, nor should they be. Your social media workflow is more like a living system that needs occasional attention. If you treat it like a set-it-and-forget-it solution, you’ll create more headaches for yourself and for your social media marketing team.
Keep an eye out for key health indicators. Are you constantly getting approvals before deadlines? Is feedback constructive and specific? These are signs your system is working smoothly.
Are you always up against bottlenecks? Is your social media team frustrated with the approval process? There’s a strong chance you need to make adjustments.
For agencies, the monitoring phase is especially important. Each client brings unique needs and communication styles to the equation. Be prepared to customize your process and adapt it based on experience. Some agencies find it helpful to create client-specific workflow variations that fit their specific approval preferences and industry requirements.
Look for opportunities to improve the process
Whenever you’re collaborating, there are opportunities to tweak your process. Take advantage of any and all opportunities to make life easier for everyone involved. Let your approval process evolve alongside your team and social media strategy. We recommend scheduling quarterly workflow reviews to pinpoint friction points that slow down your content.
Pay close attention to your social media analytics, too. They’ll provide important clues for workflow refinement. You might notice that posts that go through a special review process perform better, or that posts approved by certain stakeholders get higher engagement. Use these insights to adjust what you post and how you approve it.
Improve collaboration and streamline social media approvals by Sked
With the right process and tools like Sked Social, you can transform approval chaos into a fine-tuned system. Beyond its powerful functionality, Sked offers comprehensive social media management features including advanced scheduling and collaboration tools that bring scattered teams together. Sked also has robust analytics for measuring your campaign success and AI-assisted content creation to spark fresh ideas when you’re running low on creative juices.
Ready to make getting social posts approved one of the easiest parts of your day? Put these steps into action and experience the difference a structured approval workflow makes.
Start your free Sked Social trial today!
