Automate Your Social Media Posting Strategy with Airtable and Zapier

As a graduate research project manager, I used to rely on FileMaker Pro to manage my projects. However, about a decade ago, I discovered Airtable, which revolutionized the way I work. With Airtable's web-based database application, I can efficiently manage data and automate tasks. In this article, we'll explore how you can use Airtable and Zapier to streamline your social media posting strategy.

One of the primary benefits of using Airtable is its seamless integration with other platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. By linking relevant fields in your Airtable base, you can extend your automation capabilities to multiple social media platforms. For instance, you can schedule regular updates for your Facebook group or Instagram page.

To set up a Zapier connection, sign into your account and connect it to your Airtable base and relevant table. With the free plan, you can still automate your social media posting strategy, albeit with some limitations. For our purpose, we'll focus on posting five times a month, starting from the 5th of each month.

Before we dive deeper, let's cover the essential fields required for this workflow: Date, Captions + Hashtags, Type of Image, Image URL, and Timestamp. By setting up these fields in Airtable, you can ensure that your social media posts are scheduled accurately and on time.

Our guide will be divided into four sections:

1. Google Drive Account to Host Generates Images from DALLE: This section will cover how to use Google Drive to host images generated by DALLE.

2. Facebook Page with a Linked Instagram Account: We'll explore how to set up your Facebook page and link it to your Instagram account.

3. Zapier (Free Plan): In this section, we'll demonstrate how to use the free plan of Zapier to automate your social media posting strategy.

4. OpenAI API Key (preferably with a text-davinci model bought): We'll discuss the importance of an OpenAI API key and how it integrates with our workflow.

Throughout this guide, we'll take you through the process of building out the application logic for your preferred platform. From content and image generation with ChatGPT and DALLE to automated storage on a custom Airtable database and post scheduling on Facebook and Instagram with Zapier, we'll cover it all.

Although I've chosen to store generated content on Airtable, you can opt for Google Sheets or a traditional database while building a UI around it. In this article, we'll delve into the dynamics of automating your social media posting strategy and explore how you can save time and focus on more demanding business activities.

By following this guide, you'll learn how to automate your social media content strategy with Airtable and Zapier, ensuring that your online presence is always up-to-date and engaging.

Airtable zapier social media post