How agencies run a social media approval workflow

Why agencies need an approval step

A post on a client's account speaks for the client. A typo in a price, a joke that lands wrong or a post on the wrong day lands on their brand, not yours.

An approval step catches that before it's public. It also gives you a record: who wrote the post, who approved it and when. When a client asks "who signed off on this?", you have the answer.

What hurts agencies isn't the approval itself. It's the way it usually runs: screenshots in email threads, comments in a shared doc, and a last-minute "looks good!" that nobody can find later.

The four stages of an approval workflow

Every working setup has the same four stages:

1. Draft. A writer creates the post, with the text, media and the accounts it goes to.
2. Submit. The writer sends it for review. The approver gets a notice.
3. Review. The approver reads the post and checks the preview. They either fix small things themselves or send it back with notes.
4. Publish. The approved post gets its time slot and goes out on schedule.

Keep it to one approval step per post. An internal check, then a client check, then a final check sounds safe. In practice each round adds waiting time, and the post misses its moment. If you need an internal review, do it before the post reaches the client, not as a second formal round.

Set it up in PublishBuddy

Approvals are on the Business plan and in the 14-day trial. Here's the setup for one client.

1. Give the client their own workspace

A workspace holds one set of social accounts plus the team, posts and media that go with them. Create one per client, named after the client. Pro and Business have as many workspaces as you need.

People only see the workspaces they belong to. A client in one workspace never sees your other clients.

2. Invite your team, and the client if they approve

Open Team Members and click Invite Team Member. Every workspace has one owner, the person who created it. Everyone else is an admin or an editor:

Writers are usually editors. Whoever approves, your account manager or the client, needs to be an admin with access to that client's accounts.

Business includes 15 team members per workspace, not counting the owner. Extra team members cost $5 a month each.

3. Turn on approval for the people who need it

For each person, you choose their access to each social account:

• Full Posting Access: their posts go out like yours.
• Requires Approval By Admin: they can only save drafts or send posts for approval.

Set it when you invite someone, or later from the ⋯ menu next to them with Edit Social Accounts. Because it's per account, a writer can post freely to your agency's own accounts and still need approval on every client's.

4. Decide whose login posts

By default, team members post through the workspace owner's connection to each network. Writers and clients never need the client's Facebook or LinkedIn password. If someone runs an account on the network themselves, you can switch them to their own connection instead. See whose connection a post uses.

How a post moves through the workflow

The writer creates the post in the composer, then clicks the arrow next to Save as Draft and picks Save and Request Approval. A saved draft can also go from the Posts page with Request Approval.

The approvers, meaning the workspace owner and every admin, get an in-app notice and an email: "A post is waiting for your review". The Dashboard shows a Posts For Approval count too.

The approver opens Posts and switches to For Approval. They read the post, check the preview and the media, and click Edit to fix a small thing themselves.

To approve, they pick when it goes out: Add to Queue, Publish Next, Schedule or Publish Now. There's no separate approve button. Choosing the time is the approval. When the approver schedules or publishes it, the writer gets "Your post was approved".

To send it back, they click Reject, then Move to Draft. The writer gets "Your post needs a few changes." The reject step has no reason box. Add a note on the post with the notes icon instead, and @mention the writer with what to fix. The writer edits it and sends it again.

Each person can turn these emails on or off under Settings, then Email Notifications.

Rules that keep approvals fast

• Set a review deadline. For example, posts for next week go to the client by Wednesday, and anything not approved by Friday doesn't go out. A deadline turns "when you get a chance" into a date.
• Send a week at a time. One batch a week gets one focused review. A post a day gets ignored.
• Keep feedback on the post. Notes on the post, with an @mention, beat a reply buried in an email thread. The next person who opens the post sees them.
• Approve by scheduling. The approver picks the time while approving, so there's no second trip back to the post.
• Leave a fast lane. Keep one senior person on Full Posting Access for urgent posts, like a correction or a time-sensitive reply.

What it costs

Approvals, roles and permissions and publishing credentials control are on Business: $49 a month, or $470 a year. It includes 20 social accounts across your workspaces and 15 team members per workspace. Extra social accounts and team members are $5 a month each.

Pro ($29 a month) has team members and unlimited workspaces, but no approval step. Both plans come with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed, and the trial includes approvals. Compare them on the pricing page.