5 Steps to Build an Efficient Social Media Approval Process for Your Team

5 Steps to Build an Efficient Social Media Approval Process for Your Team

November 1, 2022 3 By samanvya

Have you ever seen a post on your Instagram feed and noticed there’s a visible grammatical mistake? Or maybe the picture didn’t line up with the caption. Although mistakes are bound to happen, seeing a post filled with errors can give off the impression that a brand or content creator seems disorganized.

 

A spelling mistake can be edited, but when the post has been seen by thousands of people, it will forever be etched into their minds that the post they just saw had a typographical error. So, how can brands avoid making mistakes and posting blunders?

 

The answer might be in an efficient social media approval process. Now, a social media approval process might seem complicated to some and counterproductive. However, when a brand is big enough and has a big following, a social media approval process is necessary. Even if your brand is just starting and you only have a few people handling your social media accounts, a social media approval process can help prevent errors and mistakes.

Defining Social Media Approval Processes

A Social Media Approval Process is defined as a sign that means it’s okay to move forward with a post. It’s a way to minimize any mistakes that can be made by posting by getting approval from team members and colleagues. 

 

Most social media managers need approval from their team before posting something. When there isn’t a process in place, it can create frustration and slow down social media efforts. Usually, the final approval comes from clients or leaders in a company. 

 

Having an approval process speeds up workflow, saves time, and ensures that posts are perfect, which improves your social media presence.

Benefits of Social Media Approval Processes for Your Team

Having a social media approval process for your team can be highly beneficial. It keeps your brand from making any mistakes online, increases collaboration within your team, and creates an efficient workflow. That’s just a few of the benefits of having a social media approval process. Below, we list five benefits and reasons why you should have a social media approval process for your team.

Reduce Chances of Errors

When you have a social media approval process, you won’t have to worry about wrong captions, unaligned pictures, or late posting times. An approval process streamlines the posting process and assures that a post is good to go by getting everyone’s agreement before it gets published. 

Improve Communication Within Your Team

Having an approval process also improves communication within your team. Since there are a few people who will be approving posts, this encourages them to communicate more and build solid teams. An approval process is an excellent way to build team communication and collaboration. 

 

A social media approval process is also great for remote teams since it defines roles and responsibilities clearly and creates room for communication. 

Keep Everything On Brand

Working through an approval process ensures that posts won’t stray too far from the brand guidelines. With a team, you can get different opinions and input before posting content. It also helps you catch any mistakes since there might be a few errors the editor or designer might have missed. 

Increase Cyber Security

Sharing passwords is a good way to breach cyber security. Having a social media approval process means that only a few people will have access to social media accounts. This reduces the chances of security breaches and you can control the degree of access for those who do have passwords. 

Steps to Creating an Efficient Social Media Approval Process

One of the requirements for managing social media accounts is having an organized workflow. Having an approval process allows your team to publish content efficiently and promptly. 

 

With a system in place, you won’t have to worry about asking your client or team for approval since it’s a requirement to publish a post. Below, we list five steps on how you can start utilizing an efficient social media approval process for your brand or company. 

Identify Your Social Media Goals

Before you start thinking of a social media approval process, think of what goals you would like to achieve. These goals will affect the strategies and system of the approval process in the long run. 

 

For example, if your goal is to post consistently and frequently, you would want a quick approval process with fewer people involved. Whereas if you focus on audience engagement and content quality, you might need a longer approval process and more opinions from your team. 

Define The Responsibilities

The second step would be to define responsibilities within the team. This means deciding who will be involved and responsible for publishing content on social media. For a social media account to run smoothly, you would need three roles to fulfill. 

 

You will need someone who creates and schedules the content, someone who edits the content to ensure that quality is maintained, and someone who approves and publishes the content. These roles are also known as content creators, content editors, and social media managers. Depending on the size of your company, you might need to hire more than three people. 

Create a Style Guide

A style guide is crucial if you want to maintain consistency and uphold the brand’s visual identity. This will keep everyone on the same page and refrain from publishing anything that is not of your company’s brand. 

 

Having a style guide will help the team with approval since it will act as a checklist to ensure that the content is aligned with the brand before it is published. 

Introduce the Workflow and Practice It

The fourth step might be the most crucial and the most challenging one to implement. This requires you to put the social media approval process into practice and implement it in your team’s workflow. 

 

After you have defined the roles and responsibilities along with the requirements needed for a post to be approved, you can start using the approval process. Of course, this might take a few tries before your team will get used to it, especially if it’s something new. 

 

Putting this process into practice allows your team to get used to the new system and fine-tune any processes if needed. 

Monitor and Revise Accordingly

Once you have everything in place and running, you will need to monitor and observe how it works with your team. You might need to make adjustments or improvements. Give it some time before making any changes. Although a social media approval process is meant to make publishing content easier, it’s important to consider how your team feels.

 

So, if adjustments are needed to match their workflow, then feel free to make adjustments accordingly. Remember to seek regular feedback so you understand what changes need to be made and what parts of the process are good. 

Closing Thoughts

A social media approval process can benefit your brand in many ways. It will improve efficiency, reduce the chances of errors, and improve collaboration within your team. Although adjustments may be needed for teams who are just starting with this system, it’s a good investment in the long run. We hope this article will help you with your social media endeavors and we hope it convinces you to implement a social media approval process for your brand.