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Creating a post in Apostle

A step-by-step guide to creating and scheduling social media posts.

Stefan Kapteijns avatar
Written by Stefan Kapteijns
Updated yesterday

The core feature of Apostle is creating and scheduling social media posts for employees, dealers, or franchisees to help expand your brand’s online reach. This article covers every step of the post creation process and the features available to help you optimize your workflow.

In three simple steps, you’re ready to share: Create Post, Choose Channels, and Publish.

Create a post

The basics of a social media post

  1. Navigate to Create Post in the left-hand menu

  2. Add a topic, description, and choose to upload an image, video, or file

Using variations

To avoid everyone in your team sharing the exact same message, you can create multiple variations of the same post.

  1. Click Add Variant

  2. Choose from the following options:

    • Duplicate the post and manually write each variation

    • Translate the post with Google Translate (make sure to review each translation)

    • Rewrite the post using AI to generate unique versions instantly

💡 Tip: You can assign different variations to different users or platforms. Use the pencil icon to rename each variation for clarity. You can also customize images and text per platform.

Adding and shortening links with UTM tracking

  1. Paste your URL in the post text field

  2. Click the pencil icon to edit the link

  3. Click Add UTM code and fill in the source, medium, and campaign name

  4. Enable Shorten Link to activate click tracking

💡 Tip: With link shortening enabled, Apostle tracks individual clicks per ambassador and displays them in Insights.

Using multiple images in one post

After uploading multiple images, you can choose one of the following options:

  • Share multiple images: Create a carousel post

  • Create separate variations: Use a different image for each variation

  • Let users choose: Allow brand ambassadors to select the image they prefer via email, mobile app or WhatsApp.

⚠️ Important: Carousel posts are not supported for personal Instagram accounts.

Choosing topics

Assign topics to your post to track performance and maintain strategic alignment.

  • Select one or more relevant topics

  • The number of posts per theme will appear in your Insights

💡 Tip: If you haven’t set up your content strategy yet, check out our strategy article and learn how to use strategy topics in Apostle.


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Saving a post as a draft

You can save your post as a draft at any point in the process. Click Save as Draft at the bottom of the page. Your draft will appear in the Post Overview, so you can finish or schedule it later.

💡 Tip: Drafts let you prepare content ahead of time and come back to it when you are ready.

Choose channels

Assigning variations to users or pages

After creating your post, decide who will share each variation.

  1. Use the search bar or filter button to filter ambassadors by group or theme

  2. Use Random to distribute variations automatically

  3. Click Variant #1, Variant #2, etc. to manually assign people to specific versions

⚠️ Important: If you only have one variation, you’ll need to manually select users. Use filters, topic and group selectors to make this easier.


Customizing table settings

  1. Click Table Settings icon

  2. Choose which columns and data you want visible in the assignment table

Prioritizing users

Click the Prio star next to a user to make sure they’re the first to receive the post. This is only relevant for posts scheduled over longer time frames.

Suggesting a post to external partners

You can invite someone outside your organization to share your post without needing an Apostle account.

  1. Click Email Only Users

  2. Click Create Email User

  3. Enter the email addresses of your partners

  4. Click Proceed and select the recipients

💡 Tip: This is perfect for one-time collaborations with partners, resellers, or stakeholders. They can share the post directly from their inbox.

Publish

Scheduling your post

In the Send screen, choose one of the following options:

  • Schedule Now: Sends immediately

  • Single Date: Schedule a fixed date and time

  • Date Range (recommended): Select a range of days or weeks to distribute posts randomly

💡 Tip: Use More Options to exclude weekends, customize time windows, and set expiration dates. These settings override the defaults from Team Settings.

Customizing email subject, message, and rewards

Before sending, you can personalize the experience for your ambassadors:

  • Subject: Sets the email subject line your ambassadors will see

  • Message: Optional note from you as the admin. Use this to add context, highlight why this post is important, or motivate your team to share it. This message is only visible in the email or mobile app, and will not be shared publicly

  • Reward: Manually adjust the number of points users earn for sharing this post. These points appear on the leaderboard

Adding an approval step

You can assign a teammate to review the post before it’s sent.

  1. Enable Assign Extra Approver Before Sending

  2. Choose an admin or regular user as the approver

  3. They’ll receive an email to approve or reject the post in their Inspiration Wall

If rejected, you’ll be notified and can revise the post.

⚠️ Important: If the post is not approved, it won’t be sent to your team.

Sending a test post to yourself

Click Send a Test Email to preview how your post looks before sharing it with the team.

That’s it! You’re ready to create, customize, and schedule your first post in Apostle.

Related Articles
Using variations (and AI)
Using multiple images in one post
Using the Posts & Planning Overview
Sharing posts by email
Getting started as an admin (Master) in Apostle
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