Publishing Social Media Posts

Social media is one of the most important communication channels for your company—and it makes an even bigger impact when it is backed by the power of marketing automation. SharpSpring Social provides the tools you need to disseminate your social messages, and it helps you generate quality leads in the process. In this article, you’ll learn how to create and publish posts directly to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The following users can create and publish posts to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter:

• Administrators
• Marketing Managers
  

Article Contents

• Publishing Social Posts
• Editing Social Posts
• Copying Posts
• Link Shortening in Social Posts
• Ready to Learn More?

Publishing Social Posts

To publish social posts, do the following:

1. In the top toolbar of SharpSpring, click    Calendar > Content Calendar. 
   

   Note: The Calendar icon will only be visible for Administrators and Marketing Managers. Salesperson and Jr. Salesperson only have access to reminders.

   
   
2.  Click Create > Social Post.
3. In the pop-up window that appears, select your social media platform(s). 
   

   Note: You can choose to post to either one platform or multiple platforms at the same time. For more information on connecting social media platforms, refer to Connecting Social Media Platforms.

   
   
4.  Enter the text of your post in text box located under What would you like to share?  
   
   As you start typing a link (such as sharpspring.com), SharpSpring adds metadata that is tied to that link—which will automatically add a description and image depending on the metadata available. (If you want to delete this metadata, click the X on the top right of the preview.) 
   
   If you would like to add a Media Center asset or image to the post, see the instructions below:
   
   

   Adding Media: To add a Media Center asset to the post, on the bottom-right of the text box, click the Media Center icon. Then, type the name of the Media Center Asset. Choose either an existing trackable link or create a new one.

   Adding Images: To add an image, on the bottom-right portion of the text box, click the Image icon. You can either upload an image from your computer or select an image you've already uploaded through the file manager.

   
   
   
   
   
5. Click Schedule Post(s).
6. Choose either Post Now or Schedule Post for Later.
   

   •   Post Now:		Immediately publish your post (within five minutes).
   •   Schedule Post for Later:		Choose a date and time that you would like to publish this post by selecting the date through the calendar and the time through the clock.

7. Click Post to.
   
   

Your past, current, and future social posts can be viewed directly in your Content Calendar. You can unschedule a social post by clicking the trash can icon when previewing the post in the calendar. For more information, refer to Content Calendar Overview.

Editing Social Posts

You can edit social posts that are scheduled but not yet published.  Once a post is published, you cannot make edits—you will need to go to the related social media platform to perform edits to live posts.

To edit social posts that are scheduled for a future day/time, do the following: 

1. Locate and click the social post in the Content Calendar.
2. Click the    Edit icon and make necessary edits.
3. Click Schedule Post.
   
   

Copying Posts

You can copy or duplicate a social post. To copy or edit posts, do the following: 

1. Locate and click the social post in the Content Calendar.
2. Click the    Copy icon.
3. In the posting screen that appears, modify the post or leave the post as it is.
4. Click the checkbox of the social media account you want to copy the post to.
5. Click Schedule Post.
   

Link Shortening in Social Posts

There are certain things to consider when publishing social media content.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn automatically shortens all web links longer than 26 characters. This is done to make posts easier to read, and provides more room to add text. The links will not appear shortened in SharpSpring when you are creating the post, but will be automatically shortened when the post is published to your actual LinkedIn account.

Before URL Shortening:

After URL Shortening:

Twitter

Links placed in a Twitter post will automatically be shortened by Twitter. The links will not appear shortened in SharpSpring when you are creating the post, but will be automatically shortened when the post is published to your actual Twitter account.

Before URL Shortening:

After URL Shortening:

Ready to Learn More?

• Creating Automations with Social Interactions
• Content Calendar Overview
• SharpSpring Social Overview