Compose Basics - Creating My First Post

This article will walk you through the fundamentals of Composing (Creating and Publishing) social content with confidence using Statusbrew's Compose.

To get started, open Statusbrew Home and click on Compose. The Compose window will pop up. You are all set to start composing the posts now!

In this article:

1. Select Social Networks
2. Add Text and Emojis
3. Uploading Media
4. Adding and Customizing Links/URL
5. Customizing Posts for Each Social Network
6. Tagging Users
7. Hashtag Suggestions
8. Adding Tags
9. Audience Targeting
10. Location Targeting
11. Branded Content (Facebook)
12. Dark Posts (Facebook)
13. Promote Posts (Facebook)
14. Choosing Approvers
15. Content Delivery Options
    
    

Global View - Create Posts For Multiple Social Networks

If you wish to create & schedule content for multiple social networks at once. You can create your post in the Global view. The text and the media you add under the Global view are shared across different social networks. You can then click on the social media network icons to customize posts for each network. 

1. Select Social Networks

The bar at the top of the Compose window displays the Groups and Social Profiles under that group to which you're posting to.

• Click on the drop-down menu at the top of the Compose window to select your desired profile/profile groups
  
  
• Next, click on the social media network icons to customize posts for each network
  
  Learn which social profiles can you connect with Statusbrew
  

2. Add Text and Emojis

• Add Text - Enter the content for your social media post in the text field in the Compose window. The character count for each social network is reflected in the lower right corner of the text field. This updates in real-time as you type content for your post.
  

  Note:
  Additional character restrictions can exist per each network. For example, Twitter has a limit of 23 characters for all URLs, both in long-form and as a shortened link.
  

  
  
• Add Emojis - Clicking the smiley face icon present in the lower-left corner of the text field in Compose allows you to include emoji in your post. You can also search and add Emojis by starting to type with ':' and then the emoji name. 

3. Uploading Media

To begin, you can directly drag and drop images and videos from your system or browse other media options:

• Image/Video Upload: Upload images and videos from your system
• Free images: Search and use royalty-free images from Unsplash and Pixabay
• Giphy: Search and use free GIFs from the Giphy library
• Design with Canva: Create & edit images using Canva's Integration with Statusbrew 
• Pick from Asset Manager: Choose images from the repository of media your team maintains inside Statusbrew's cloud storage i.e. Asset Manager
• Storage apps: Search & add media from your connected Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive account

Learn in detail about Media Upload Types & Size Limits

For images, hovering over the thumbnail preview highlights the option to Edit or Remove the image.

Clicking on Edit Media gives you options to Edit Media and Edit Alt Text (Twitter only).

• Select Edit Media to open Image Editor to Crop & Edit Image to required aspect ratios, filters or adding text banners.
  
  Once you've finished editing your image, simply click Save. Your newly-edited image will appear in the thumbnail preview.
  
  

Tip:
When multiple images are attached, drag-and-drop them to reorder them in your posts.

• Select Edit Alt Text to give your Twitter image a description. There is a character limit of 255 words for Twitter alt texts.
  
  

4. Adding and Customizing Links/URLs

There are two ways to add links you want to share:

• Share links along with media 
  
  Enter the links as a part of the text in the Compose text field & click on the Remove button. 
  
  This will not generate the metadata preview of the link. 
  
  
  
  
• Share links with their metadata preview
  
  Enter the links as a part of the text in the Compose text field. Any metadata gathered from the link entered will also display as a link preview. To edit metadata, click on the Customize Link Preview button beneath the preview.
  
  

  Note:
  Link customization is only available on LinkedIn and Facebook Pages with verified domains. Learn more
  

  
  
  
  
• Shorten the links
  
  Click on Shorten Links in the Compose window and shorten the link using bitly.
  

  Note:
  If you have a vanity bit.ly link shortener, you may connect your account to Statusbrew.
  

  
  
  
  
• Add campaign parameters
  
  Use the Campaign URL Builder to add preferred UTM campaign parameters to your shortened links so you can track custom campaigns in analytics. Learn More.
  
  
  

5. Customizing Posts for Each Social Network

Clicking on Customize for Each Network button on the top-right of the text field in the Compose window will split your chosen social networks into separate tabs.

You can start with a common caption text for all your posts and then customize them to:

• Add network-specific hashtags
• Mentioning other users/pages
• Change links/media for each network
• Resize media to suit specifications for each network using our in-app image editor and more

Simply switch to the required social tab and update text, media or links. It will only reflect the changes to that network's posts and changes are dynamically updated in the post previews on the right side.

6. Tagging Users

When creating posts, you’ll sometimes want to mention other users. Each network has its own specifications, and some won’t allow tagging users together, for example, you won’t be able to tag someone on Twitter and Facebook at the same time.

To do this, we recommend using the Customize for Each Network button.

• For Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn - Simply switch to the respective tab and search for the user by starting to type with '@' followed by the name/username. You will be able to tag people and pages via a dropdown.
  
  Types of Tagging on these Platforms
  - Facebook - Caption tagging for Company Pages and User Profile
  - LinkedIn - Caption tagging for Company pages
  - Twitter - Caption tagging
  
  
  
  
• Instagram allows Caption and Image tagging for Company Pages and User Profile but you will have to write the complete usernames, i.e., if you type a username (eg. @statusbrew) in the text field for Instagram, it will hyperlink to that profile in your published post caption.
  
  How to tag an image on Instagram:
  - Click the 3 dot menu on the left side of the image
  - Click Edit Tags
  - Click on the image, and a dialogue box will appear
  (Since Instagram doesn't give the user/page name suggestions, so ensure to @ the correct username)

7. Hashtag Suggestions

Get hashtag suggestions for your posts, just type '#' followed by the keyword and pick the relevant hashtag from the displayed list.

Note:
Only Twitter posts currently support this feature.

8. Adding Tags

Tags are not visible on your posts, but they help you categorize them. Use tags to analyze the performance of your published content in Statusbrew's Reports.

To Add Tags to a post, scroll to the bottom left corner of the Composer and click on the Tag icon. Next, select the tag(s) to add to your post, and then click Save.

Learn in detail about applying tags in Publish and Engage section.

9. Audience Targeting

When a Facebook Page or LinkedIn Page is selected in the Compose window, select Audience Targeting to select specific user sets who will be able to see your posts in their feeds or on Page's timeline. The posts will be hidden from the audience outside the target user set.

Read Facebook and LinkedIn Audience Targeting for more details.

10. Location Targeting 

Statusbrew allows you to add a location to your Twitter posts directly from the compose window.

To add a location to your posts in compose,

• Open the Compose window and select a Twitter profile from the profile chooser

• Click on  icon and select a network

• You can now search for your preferred location and add it to your post

• Once you add a location, it shows real-time in the post preview

11. Branded Content (Facebook)

With branded content, publishers (content creators) can Tag their partners in branded content posts, which can be either organic or ads. Both parties will get insights about reach and engagement with these posts.

Also, both, content creators, as well as partners, can promote organic branded content.

Your Facebook Page needs to be whitelisted if you want to use this feature. If you have a Branded Content partnership, you can select and search for your partner to Tag them in your posts. Learn more.

12. Dark Post and Native Scheduling (Facebook)

Statusbrew's Compose also gives you two more Facebook scheduling options - Dark Post and Native Scheduling. Simply click onicon to discover both the options.

• In case you want to hide your Facebook posts or ads from your timeline, you can enable the Dark Post option. This is particularly useful for organizations where a separate team takes care of setting up the audience and ad budget for the posts natively from the Facebook business manager.
  
  Read more about Dark (Unpublished) Facebook Posts in Statusbrew.
  
  
• Native Scheduling for Facebook lets you publish the post via a native FB scheduler. All you need to do is schedule the post using Statusbrew Compose and activate the option of Native Scheduling.
  

  Note:
  Posts selected for Facebook Native scheduling cannot be edited from Statusbrew. Although the user has the option to delete the post and create a new one if they need to do any updation.

13. Promote Posts (Facebook)

If you'd like to schedule a Facebook promoted post (ad), you can use the Boost Post ($) button.

Read about Scheduling Facebook Ads for details.

Note:
Connecting your Facebook Ad Account to Statusbrew is essential to Boost Posts.

14. Choosing Approvers

Team members with Needs Approval access to Publish section cannot publish the posts directly, rather they have to get the posts approved. To submit the post for approval, click the Approvers button and select the name of Team Member(s) to whom you wish to send the post for approval and Click Send for Approval button.



Learn in detail about approval workflows.

15. Content Delivery Options

Once your post has been crafted, you have a few ways to manage how it will be published.

• Send Now: To publish the post right away, click Send Now in the bottom-right corner. This button will only be visible to the users with full access to publish.
  
  
• Schedule the Post: To schedule the post, click Schedule for Later.
  
  
  
  
  Time-sensitive content like posts surrounding a promotion or campaign is best suited for scheduling. Select a Custom Date and Time to publish the post.
  
  
  
  Most content, such as tips about your product or evergreen blog posts, is not time-sensitive.
  
  This content would be best suited for Schedule by Category. Read more about Categories.
  
  
  
  Click Done, and then click Schedule.
  
  
• Save as Draft: To save the post as a draft click the drop-down arrow next to Post Now (or Schedule) and select Save as Draft.
  
  
  

Continue on to learn about the Planner and Calendar, which gives you a birds-eye view of all of your posts, so you can effectively manage your content strategy.