What are Custom Fields?

When you handle multiple social media accounts for clients like a retail chain or franchise, you might have to post content that is somewhat identical for each account. But each post needs slightly different snippets or details to make the information account-specific. 

For example, suppose the same franchise is running two restaurants. They have similar branding and message and serve the same menu. But they are at different locations and have different contact information. So these details have to be separately entered into the otherwise identical social media posts. 

Manually adding these details to otherwise similar posts seems tedious while creating and scheduling posts for each account. To make things simpler for you, SocialPilot has the perfect answer- Custom Fields. 

Custom fields let you store account-specific information under separate categories to add to your posts later. As mentioned above, categories can be addresses, contact information, taglines, URLs, signatures, Id numbers, email addresses, legal disclaimers, etc. You can make a separate custom field for each of these and further customize the value for each account. 

Each field will have a unique value for every account you assign it to. So when you are creating a new post, all you have to do is select the field. And the value which you have saved under that account will be inserted automatically into your post.

Thus, you won't have to waste time manually adding these details to your posts—head straight to publishing customized posts with minimum effort.

Check out this quick overview on how custom fields would help improve your productivity:

How to create Custom Fields for separate accounts?

The process of setting up custom fields through SocialPilot is very easy. Here are the steps for you: 

1. Go to the SocialPilot dashboard and click on "Settings."
2. Select Custom Fields.

3. Click on the "Add Custom Field" at the top right corner of the page.

4. Enter a name for the Custom Field.
5. Select an account for which you want to set up this field.
6. Enter the value for this field under the Value field.
7. Repeat the previous two steps to add different values for other accounts for the same Custom Field.

8. When done, click on "Save".

Now your Custom Field is all set up and ready to use in the posts. You can always edit the values or add new accounts to the pre-existing Custom fields. But remember:

• A single account can have 500 keys connected to it. 
• The character limit for a given custom field is 1000. 
• Every field has a unique value. 
• Under one custom field, each account can have only one value.

How to use Custom Fields to Customize Posts

After creating Custom Fields, you are ready to use them to streamline your post-creation process. All you have to do is focus on your content and SocialPilot is going to take care of the customizations for you. Here is how you utilize the Custom Fields: 

1. Go to Create Post.
2. Enter the main body of your content, which is to be common in all the posts.

3. Now take your cursor to the space where you want to enter values, in this post, “Contact us.”
4. Click on the Custom Fields icon </>.

5. From the available Custom fields, select the one you want to insert into the post.

6. The field name will be visible in the post you composed.

7. Now select the accounts you want schedule the post to your preference.
8. To check the end result, go to the Manage Posts section.
9. Go to your scheduled posts. Here you will be able to see that the custom field has been replaced with its value.

Every post you scheduled for each selected account will contain a unique value that you had entered during the setting up of that Custom Field when it gets published. 

This feature is only available for agency plans and above. So if you don't have that specific plan, click here to upgrade your subscription.