How to Automate Social Media Posts from ClickUp to Vista Social with Zapier

This guide will help you connect ClickUp and Vista Social using Zapier. By setting this up, you can easily schedule your social media posts directly from ClickUp. It saves you time and simplifies managing profiles and content on different networks.

Enjoy a smoother experience with your social media tasks!

• Step 1: Locate and Prepare Your Profile IDs
• Step 2: Create or Update Your Planned Posts List
• Step 3: Create a Custom Relationship Field
• Step 4: Set Up Zapier Trigger 
• Step 5: Set up the Vista Social Action
• Step 6: Test and Validate

Step 1: Locate and Prepare Your Profile IDs

When you make a task in ClickUp for a social media post, we need to know which profiles to post to. Specifically, we need the IDs of these profiles. To simplify this, we'll first gather your profiles and then add them to Clickup.

A. Locate Profile IDs in Vista Social:

• • Go to Settings > Connected Profiles in Vista Social
  • Select a profile (e.g., Instagram account for "Matthew's Coffee")

Copy the final number in the URL (Example: 25055 in https://vistasocial.com/settings/profiles/25055)

B. Create a Profile IDs List in ClickUp:

• • • Create a new list (e.g., Profile IDs) in ClickUp.
    • For each social media profile, create a separate task.
    • Use this naming convention: ID - Profile Name (Network)
      (Example: 25055 - Matthew's Coffee (Instagram)).

Bonus: Create custom statuses for each Social Network. This helps you color-code and easily find them later.

Step 2: Create or Update Your Planned Posts List

Next, identify your planned posts list (or create a new one). This list will include all the posts you plan to publish.

A. Add Required Custom Fields

Add or verify these required custom fields:

• Post Schedule Date (Date and time field)
• Caption (Text field for the post caption)
• Media (File field with image/video to be used for the post)

Here's a breakdown of the other available fields and whether or not they're mandatory:

B. Create a Custom Status

To streamline task management, create a custom status for posts:

• Name the status Ready for VS (Vista Social)
• Use this status to mark posts that are ready to be sent to Vista Social via this automation

Step 3: Create a Custom Relationship Field

When you create a Task in ClickUp for a social media post, you'll specify the profile(s) for publication.

You can create a custom relationship field that pulls from your Profile IDs list from step 1B above. This makes it easy to select a profile when creating tasks in your planned posts list.

1. Create a new Custom Field in your planned posts list
2. Select the Relationship Field option
3. In the RElated To option, choose the Profile IDs list

Step 4: Set Up Zapier Trigger

A. Trigger the Automation

1. Use Task Change as the Zap trigger
2. Monitor the planned posts list for tasks with the status Ready for Vista Social
3. Ensure tasks have the following completed before triggering:
   • Caption
   • Scheduled date and time
   • Selected social profiles (via the relationship field)

B. Format the Date and Time

ClickUp sends date/times to Zapier in Unix format, which Vista Social doesn't support. First, we need to convert it to a readable format. Then, we can adjust it to meet Vista Social's specific requirements.

1. Create a Formatter step with a "Date / Time" action event to convert the ClickUp-provided UNIX UTC timestamp:

• • Input: Map this to the Post Schedule Date custom field from ClickUp
  • To Format: Use the MMMM DD YYYY HH:mm ss format
  • To Timezone: Select the timezone used for these social profile
  • From Timezone: Select UTC, as this is the timezone ClickUp's API sends to Zapier

2. Create an AI by Zapier step with a "Analyze and Return Data" action event to reformat the previous step's date into Vista Social's required format:

You can use this prompt:

reformat input date time to YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM (24hr based). Only output result, not any other information {Mapped field}

Make sure to map it to the date/time output from the Formatter in the previous step above.

C. Extract Profile IDs

Set up a Formatter with a "Text" action to get profile IDs from the relationship field in your planned posts. This step prevents sending profile names to Vista Social, avoiding errors. Vista Social only needs Profile IDs.

Use the "Extract Number" transform function. 

Step 5: Set up the Vista Social Action

With the data formatted and profile IDs ready, set up a Vista Social action to schedule the post:

1. Add a Vista Social Action:

   • Choose the "Schedule Post" event
   • Authenticate with your Vista Social API key

2. Map the Fields:

   • Profiles: Map the profile IDs from the Formatter step where you extracted the IDs
   • Caption: Map the caption from the your ClickUp task's caption field
   • Media: Map the URL to the media file from your ClickUp task's custom media field
   • Publish At: Map the formatted date/time from the second Formatter step (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM)
   • Map any other fields: If you created any other network specific or optional custom fields in ClickUp, make sure to map them to the Vista Social action. 

Step 6: Test and Validate

1. Test the Zap with a sample social post task.
2. Verify the following in Vista Social:
   • Correct profile(s) selected
   • Media attachment appears as expected
   • Caption and post type are accurate
   • Scheduled date and time match your settings
   • Optional fields have worked as intended

Step 7: Go Live

Enable the Zap and start automating your posts!

Need Help?

Our services team is ready to assist with setup, just shoot us a note for a quote on setting up your custom workflow.