How to automate social media posts from Notion to Vista Social with Zapier

This guide explains how to connect Notion and Vista Social using Zapier so you can schedule social media posts directly from a Notion project.

You’ll create a Notion project for your planned posts, configure the required fields, and build a Zap that sends posts to Vista Social when they are marked as ready.

Available on: Advanced, Scale, and Enterprise plans.

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 project
• Step 3: Create a Custom Relationship Property
• 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 Notion 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 Notion.

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 Multi-select property in your project

• Create a new Multi-select property (e.g., Profiles to post to) in your Notion project
• For each social media profile, create a new selection option.
• Use this naming convention: ID - Profile Name (Network)
  (Example: 25055 - Matthew's Coffee (Instagram)).

Step 2: Create or Update Your Planned Posts Project

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

A. Add Required Custom Properties

Add or verify these required custom properties:

• Post Schedule Date (Date and time property)
• Caption (Text property for the post caption)
• Media (File property 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 4: Set Up Zapier Trigger

A. Trigger the Automation

1. Use the Updated Database Item as the Zap trigger event
2. Configure it to monitor the tasks database for changes
3. Ensure tasks have the following completed before triggering a test :
   • Caption
   • Scheduled date and time
   • Selected social profiles (via the relationship field)
4. Set up a filter to only continue if task status contains Ready for VS

C. Get all task details

Notion only sends a few details around this task, so we need to ask if to send more details.

1. Create an action step with the event "Retrieve a page"

2. Configure it to send more details of the Task, by mapping it to the Page ID of the task in original Trigger step.

C. Format the Date and Time

Notion sends dates/times to Zapier in a format Vista Social doesn't support. So, we need to adjust it to meet Vista Social's requirements.

1. Create an AI by Zapier step with a "Analyze and Return Data" action event to reformat the scheduled post date property of your Notion task 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 property from Notion task.

D. Extract Profile IDs

Set up a Formatter with a "Text" action to get profile IDs from the property 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 and map the input with the "Retrieve a page" action in step 2:

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 in step 5 where you extracted the IDs
   • Caption: Map the caption from your Notion task's caption field
   • Media: Map the URL to the media file from your Notion task's custom media field
   • Publish At: Map the formatted date/time from the Formatter in step 4 step (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM)
   • Map any other fields: If you created any other network-specific or optional custom fields in Notion, 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!

Key things to check

• Your Vista Social profile IDs are correctly added to the Profiles to post to property.
• Profile options follow the ID - Profile Name (Network) naming format.
• The required Notion properties are configured correctly.
• The post has a caption, media, scheduled date and time, and selected profiles before testing.
• The post status is Ready for VS.
• The scheduled date and time are converted to YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.
• The Vista Social action receives the profile IDs rather than the profile names.
• Network-specific fields are configured when required.

Expected behavior

When a Notion database item is updated and meets the conditions configured in Zapier, the Zap retrieves the task details, formats the scheduled date and time, extracts the Vista Social profile IDs, and sends the information to the Schedule Post action in Vista Social.

The resulting post should appear in Vista Social with the profile, media, caption, post type, scheduled time, and other mapped fields from your Notion task.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why do I need to add the Vista Social Profile ID to the Notion property?
A: Vista Social needs the profile ID to identify which connected social media profile should receive the post.

Q: Why can't I send the profile name directly to Vista Social?
A: The automation extracts the numeric profile ID from the Notion property because Vista Social requires the profile ID for the scheduling action.

Q: Why does the scheduled date need to be reformatted?
A: Notion sends the date and time to Zapier in a format that Vista Social does not support. The automation converts it to YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM.

Q: What makes a Notion post trigger the automation?
A: The Zap uses Updated Database Item as its trigger and is filtered to continue when the task status contains Ready for VS.

Q: Are all Notion properties required?
A: No. Caption, scheduled date and time, and media are required for the workflow. Some additional fields are only required for specific networks, while others are optional.

Q: What should I check if my test does not create the expected post?
A: Check that the Notion task has the required fields completed, the correct profiles are selected, the status is Ready for VS, and the Zap is mapping profile IDs, media, caption, and formatted date/time to the corresponding Vista Social fields.

Need further help?

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

Related Reading:

Zapier Integration Overview

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

Bulk Scheduling - CSV format explained

How to Export Your Calendar in CSV Format

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