How GR Agency Runs Client Content Plans in posterly

How GR Agency Runs Client Content Plans and Approvals in posterly

posterly was not designed in a vacuum. It grew out of GR Agency, the Dubai creative agency I own and run, and the work that agency does every month: planning content for client brands, getting it approved, publishing it across accounts, and reporting on how it did.

For a long time that work ran on the same stack most agencies use. A Google Slides deck for the client to look at, a Google Doc for captions, a Google Sheet to track dates, formats and status, and a scheduler that everything was copied into at the end. This post walks through what replaced that stack, feature by feature, and where the time stopped going. The agency has also written up its own side of the story on the GR Agency blog, from the team that does the work every day.

We're not going to put an hours-saved number on it. Nobody was timing the old process, and an invented figure would be worth nothing to you. What we can do is show you exactly which steps disappeared.

The old stack, and what replaced it

Job	Before	In posterly
Presenting the month to the client	Build a Slides deck, one post per slide	The client opens a review page that shows each post as a slide, generated from the real posts
Writing and editing captions	A Google Doc, kept in step with the deck	The caption is written once, on the post
Tracking dates, formats and status	A Google Sheet	The content plan itself: every slot has a date, format, pillar and status
Collecting feedback	Email, WhatsApp and file comments	Approve, request changes, reject or comment on each post, on one page
Knowing what was approved	Reading back through threads	Separate approval for the creative and the caption, visible on every post
Getting approved posts into the scheduler	Copy each caption, re-upload each file	Nothing to move. Approval is what lets the post publish
Moving a post to another day	Change it in three files and the scheduler	Drag the slot in the plan grid
Monthly reporting	Export numbers from each platform	Analytics from the same accounts, with a spreadsheet export

The common thread is that every row on the left is a copy of something. Every copy is a chance for the version the client approved to drift from the version that goes live.

Step 1: build the month as a content plan

A content plan in posterly belongs to one client brand and covers a period, usually a calendar month. It carries the strategy notes and content pillars that used to sit on the first slide of the deck, plus the channels the month targets.

The plan starts as a grid of empty slots. Each slot has a date, a content pillar and a format: Image, Carousel, Reel, Story, Video, Text or Document. When the team is ready, they fill the slot with a real post, with its caption, media, platforms and publish time. An empty slot's action reads Draft post and opens the composer already set to the slot's date and brand, so nobody has to re-enter it.

There are four ways to look at the plan, and they are all the same data:

• List, for working through slots one by one, with a "No media yet" marker on posts still waiting for artwork.
• Grid, where you drag one slot onto another to swap their dates. Scheduled posts linked to those slots move with them. Posts the client has approved are locked, so a reshuffle can never disturb signed-off content.
• Feed preview, the month as it will look on the profile, using the same grid the client sees.
• Calendar, a month view in the client's own timezone, with empty slots shown in place so gaps are obvious.

Stories go in the same plan, in their own gallery, and are approved in the same review.

The full reference is in the Content Plans docs.

Step 2: send it to the client

Send for review lists the brand's saved reviewers, all ticked. Untick anyone who should not get this one, or add someone new with a name, an email and whether they can approve. Up to 10 reviewers can be emailed in one send, and each gets their own private link. Reviewers can be set as able to approve or as comment only, which suits clients where a marketing coordinator gives feedback but a manager signs off.

The plan doesn't have to be finished. The review page tells the client how many slots are filled, and shows the rest as placeholders, so a draft can go out early for a first reaction.

Clients do not need a posterly account. They confirm their email once with a code and stay signed in on that device for 30 days. The review page carries your agency logo instead of the workspace name, and if you run your own client portal, the plan has a permanent review link you can put behind a button there. More on the setup in client approvals.

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Step 3: the client reviews on one page

This is the part that replaced the Slides deck, and the part GR Agency's clients noticed first.

The review page opens as a slide deck, one post per slide, with a preview of the post next to its caption, platforms, format, content pillar and scheduled time. The client can switch to a feed grid or a month calendar, and pick any post to jump back to its slide. Arabic captions read right to left, paragraph by paragraph, which matters a lot for a Dubai agency with bilingual clients.

On every post the client can approve, request changes with a comment, reject, or just leave a comment. Three details carry most of the weight.

The creative and the caption are separate decisions. Clients regularly like the reel and want one line of the caption changed, or the reverse. posterly records the asset and the caption as two approvals, and a post publishes only when both are approved. When the team then fixes the caption, only the caption reopens. The client is not asked to look at an approved reel again. See asset and caption approvals.

Clients can edit the caption directly. Instead of describing a change, a reviewer can rewrite the caption in place. The team sees it as a tracked change, old wording struck through and new wording highlighted, and accepts or rejects it. Accepting counts as caption approval, because both sides have agreed on the words. See client caption edits.

One summary, not twenty pings. The client clicks Submit review when they are done, and the team gets a single email with every decision and comment from that session. If the client is happy with everything still waiting, Approve all signs it off in one go without touching anything they already sent back.

Step 4: revise only what came back

When posts come back with changes, the team edits those posts and sends just them, or the whole plan again. Re-sending never resets an approval: approved posts stay approved, published posts are skipped, and any half the client already approved is kept. The client's email lists each updated post with its date and the comment they left, and the link opens straight to those posts.

This removed the most frustrating part of the old process, where a second version of the deck went out and the client had to work out for themselves what had changed.

Step 5: approval is what publishes

There is no handoff from "approved" to "scheduled". A post in a content plan cannot publish until it is approved, and once both its creative and caption are approved, it goes out at its scheduled time. If a client approves after the scheduled time has passed, the post goes out straight away.

Approved stories get one more step: Schedule approved stories turns them into real story posts on the client's Instagram and Facebook accounts, with times you pick, without uploading the files again.

Step 6: report from the same place

At the end of the month, the analytics come from the same accounts the posts were published to. posterly has analytics for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, X, Pinterest and Google Business Profile, so nobody logs in to each platform to collect numbers.

For clients who want a report in their own format, the analytics spreadsheet lays the numbers out by month or by day and exports to CSV or Excel. The report starts from real data instead of a blank Sheet.

What changed for the team

The biggest change was not any single feature. It was that there is now one version of each post. The caption the client approved is the caption that publishes. The date in the plan is the date on the calendar. When someone asks "has the client signed off the Ramadan carousel?", the answer is on the post, not in someone's inbox.

The jobs that used to have a person's name on them every month, building the deck, syncing the Doc and the Sheet, chasing feedback across channels, and copying everything into the scheduler, are not done faster. They are not done at all.

Is this for your agency?

Content plans, the client review page and asset and caption approvals are part of the Agency plan, which covers up to 100 connected social accounts and 30 client brands. If you are an agency comparing tools, the posterly for agencies page covers client groups, team roles and the rest of the agency workflow, and our comparisons of Buffer alternatives and Hootsuite alternatives cover how posterly stacks up.

If you manage one or two brands and your client is happy with a quick message before you post, you probably don't need any of this. Once you are building a deck every month for several clients, it pays for itself in the steps you no longer take.

Getting started

1. Start a free trial on the Agency plan.
2. Create a client brand, connect its social accounts and set its timezone.
3. On the brand's Client access tab, invite the client's reviewers and upload your logo for the review page in Workspace Settings.
4. Open Content Plans, click New plan, and lay out next month's slots.
5. Fill the slots, check the feed preview and calendar, then Send for review.

FAQ

Does posterly replace the Google Slides content plan deck?

Yes, for GR Agency it did. The client review page shows each post as a slide with its preview, caption, platforms, format, content pillar and scheduled time, built from the real posts in the plan, so there is no separate deck to make or keep up to date.

Can a client approve the image but ask for a different caption?

Yes. posterly records the creative and the caption as separate approvals. The client can approve one and request changes on the other, and the post only publishes once both are approved. Editing the caption afterwards reopens only the caption.

Can a client edit the caption themselves?

Yes, on content plan review links. The edit appears to your team as a tracked change that you accept or reject, and nothing on the post changes until someone on your team accepts it.

Do approved posts need to be scheduled separately?

No. A planned post already has its publish time, and approval is what allows it to publish. Once both the creative and the caption are approved, it goes out at its scheduled time. Approved stories are scheduled from the plan in one step, without re-uploading.

Which plan includes content plans and client approvals?

Content plans, the plan review page and asset and caption approvals are on the Agency plan. Guest reviewer links for single posts outside a content plan are available from the Pro plan.