Generate post ideas with Sydekick
How do I get post ideas without writing from scratch?
Open Social → Publishing, choose one location, then open Sydekick ideas and select Plan a calendar. Tell Sydekick what the month should be about, if you like, and it drafts about a dozen ideas, at most one per date, for the next 30 days. They arrive as proposals, not posts: dashed chips on the calendar and cards in the drawer. Nothing is scheduled or published until you act on a card: Add to calendar schedules it, while Open in composer lets you review and edit the idea first and then choose what to do with it.
Key facts
| Where it lives | Social → Publishing, then Sydekick ideas beside the calendar |
| What you need | One location selected in the scope bar, and Sydekick set up for your account |
| What it makes | About a dozen ideas for the next 30 days, one per date. Each is an idea, not a post |
| Pictures | An idea can arrive without its picture. Generate media uses 1 image credit per picture |
| Add to calendar | Schedules the post for its date, on the accounts you chose. It is not a draft |
| Ideas with no date | Listed under No date yet, including ideas Sydekick suggests in conversation |
Why this matters
A plan gives you a dated list of post ideas to read through in one sitting. Keep the ones you like and rewrite or discard the rest. Add to calendar schedules a post, so read every caption before you use it.
Steps
Open Social in the left navigation, then Publishing.
In the scope bar at the top, choose a single location. A plan is written for one business, using its category, services and city. With a whole client selected, the drawer asks you to pick a location instead, and the All clients view has no ideas drawer.
Select Sydekick ideas. With no plan yet, the drawer offers Plan a calendar and Create a post.
Select Plan a calendar. Under What should this month be about?, describe the month, for example a launch or an offer. This is optional but it steers every idea. Under Publish to, choose the accounts the posts should be written for; this is optional too.
Select Plan a calendar again. Synup opens Sydekick with your location as its scope and sends it a request to plan the next 30 days, with your brief added. Writing the plan can take a couple of minutes. While it runs, the drawer shows Planning and hides the button so you do not request a second plan by accident.
When the plan arrives, read it in the drawer and on the calendar. Each card shows its date, title, picture, caption and accounts. Dates with a known occasion, such as Veterans Day, are labelled on the calendar.
Work through the cards. Edit the title and caption in place with Update idea on a card that is still waiting for its picture, adjust a picture with Tweak, or select Open in composer to finish any idea in the full post editor. The menu at the end of a card has Change accounts and Ask Sydekick about this.
Select Add to calendar on the cards you want, or Add all at the bottom of the drawer to add every card that is ready. The drawer reports how many of the plan are on the calendar, and each added post appears as a solid chip on its date.
What an idea needs before you can add it
A card can be added once it has accounts and, if it was planned with an image, a picture.
- Accounts. A card shows 2 accounts from plan when you chose them in the brief. If you did not, the drawer shows Choose accounts to schedule these. Change accounts on a card, or the accounts control in the drawer header, changes them for the plan.
- A picture. An idea that comes with an image description but no picture shows Generate media in place of Add to calendar. Generate all at the bottom makes every missing picture in the background, and the drawer shows the credits it will use, 1 image credit per picture. Tweak lets you say what to change, or leave it blank to try again.
Select the expand icon in the drawer header to open the plan full width, where each idea is one row and the header shows how many are on the calendar.
Add to calendar schedules a post
Add to calendar turns the idea into a scheduled post on its date, at a default morning time, with one entry for each account you chose. If nothing changes, it publishes on that date. If a chosen account cannot take the post, Synup saves the content as a draft and the card says what is missing instead of failing silently. To keep an idea as a draft, or to change its schedule, use Open in composer, or Schedule under No date yet, which pencils the idea in as a draft.
Ideas with no date
Ideas that have no date are listed under No date yet, below the plan. This is where ideas you ask Sydekick for in a conversation arrive, marked Suggested. An idea that is waiting for someone to approve it is marked Needs review; see review approvals. Select Open to edit one or Schedule to give it a day; it lands in the morning as a draft, ready for accounts. Tick several and use Schedule all to place them on consecutive days, one a day.
Plan again or start over
Plan again writes a new plan. Discard all ideas asks you to confirm and clears the plan so you can start over; anything you already added to the calendar stays.
What you'll see when it's done
- About a dozen dashed proposals on the calendar and a card for each in Sydekick ideas
- Solid chips on the dates of the posts you added, and a count of how many of the plan are on the calendar
- Posts you finished in the composer with their final accounts and time
Watch out for
- Check every fact. A generated caption can use the location's details, services and occasions. Verify names, offers, hours and dates, because an outdated detail in your records can reach a caption.
- Press Plan a calendar once. It is hidden while Sydekick is writing, and Plan again replaces the waiting plan.
- Pictures cost credits. Each picture uses 1 image credit, and the drawer shows the total before you generate.
- Agency members plan; client users don't. Planning is part of the agency's Publishing page, not the client app.
- Content rules can hold an idea. If your workspace has mandatory content rules, an idea that breaks one is not added; open it in the composer to fix it.
Questions people ask
Why does the drawer say "Pick a location"?
A plan is written for one business, using its category, services and city. Choose a single location in the scope bar. With a whole client selected, you can still open and schedule ideas under No date yet, but you cannot plan a month. The All clients view has no ideas drawer at all.
Why does Plan a calendar say "agent is not ready"?
Planning runs through Sydekick, which has to be set up for your account first. Until it is, Synup shows agent is not ready under the button and Sydekick's own panel offers Enable agent. See setting up and testing Sydekick.
Where did the Ideas tab and Generate Idea go?
Ideas now live beside the calendar. Open Sydekick ideas: a plan appears under This month's plan, and ideas without a date appear under No date yet. An old link to the Ideas page opens the calendar with the drawer open.
Can I write one post myself instead?
Yes. Select Create a post in the drawer, or Create Post at the top of the page. See the composer.
Does planning publish anything?
No. A plan is only proposals. A post is scheduled only when you select Add to calendar or Add all, or when you choose to schedule it after opening it in the composer.
Next
Continue with Create and publish a post to review the preview, select accounts and schedule a post you opened from an idea. To add your own image or video, see Add images or video to a post. To find a post once it is on the calendar, see find and filter posts.