How to get clients to approve social media posts faster
Clients approve slowly when approving is hard work. Send the whole month at once, as one link that opens on a phone, with every post shown as it will appear. Give one deadline, let the client approve or comment post by post, and keep every note so the same correction never has to be made twice.
Why approvals stall
Approvals rarely stall because the client does not care. They stall because of how the content reaches them.
- It arrives in pieces. A PDF on Monday, two revisions on Wednesday, a video on Friday. Nobody can see the month.
- It needs a laptop. The client reads WhatsApp on their phone all day and opens their laptop for meetings.
- Feedback has nowhere to go. Comments land in email, WhatsApp, a call, a shared document. Someone has to collect them.
- There is no deadline. "Let us know what you think" has no end date, so it waits.
A process that works
- Plan and produce the whole month first. The client approves a month, not a stream of posts.
- Check it internally before the client sees it. Spelling, prices, dates, logos, the brand's rules. A client who finds a typo stops trusting everything else.
- Send one link. Every post in order, with the caption, the design and the date, as it will look on the channel.
- Set one deadline. "Please approve by Thursday so we can schedule from the 1st." Specific, and tied to a reason.
- Let them answer post by post. Approve, or ask for a change on that post. Nothing else to fill in.
- Turn every note into a rule. If the client says "never call our customers clients", that is true for every post from now on, not just this one.
- Send the changes back the same way. Same link, changed posts marked, everything else still approved.
What the client should see
Here is a review page as the client opens it on a phone. The month's progress is at the top, then one button to approve everything, then each post on its own.
On the agency's side, sending it is one button on the month's calendar, beside the button that copies the link.
How to make the second month faster than the first
The first month has the most notes, because the client is teaching you their brand. If those notes are kept and applied, the second month has fewer and the third fewer again.
That only happens if notes are written down as rules, not left in a chat. "Do not use the word cheap" belongs in the brand's guidelines, where every writer sees it before they start. Planist keeps these as rules in each brand's brand brain, so a correction made once is applied to every post after it.
When a client goes quiet
- Send a short reminder a day before the deadline, with the link again.
- Say what happens if they miss it. "If we do not hear by Thursday, the first week starts on the 8th instead of the 1st."
- Do not publish without approval, unless the contract says silence counts as a yes. Agree that in writing at the start.
Questions people ask
- How do agencies get clients to approve content?
- By sending the whole month in one link the client can open on a phone, setting a clear deadline, and letting the client approve or comment on each post individually. Every note should be kept so it does not need repeating.
- How long should a client have to approve social media content?
- Three to five working days for a month of content. Less than that rushes them; more than a week usually means it gets forgotten.
- Should an agency post content the client has not approved?
- No, unless the contract says in writing that no reply by the deadline counts as approval. Agree that before the first month starts.