Automatically schedule social media posts w/ script

[Fauntleroy]

Automatically create ~8 posts for Facebook/Twitter

Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/v2.8/page/feed
Twitter: buffer?

[Fauntleroy]

Here's a basic idea for a post schedule:

May
13 - NodeSchool Oakland May
Day of Post (written by an organizer)
"Our event is today at @npmjs"
Image: Something at the event. Usually stickers.

14
Day After Post
"Thanks for coming out!

Our next event will be on June 10th at @npmjs

https://www.nodeschool.io/oakland"
Image: Previous event's group photo

15
16
17
18
19
20 3 weeks out
Next event reminder post

21
22
23
Next event mentor reminder post

24
25
26
27 2 weeks out
Next event reminder post

28
29
Next event mentor reminder post

30
31
Next event reminder post

June
1
2
Next event mentor reminder post

3 1 week out
4
Next event reminder post

5
6
Next event mentor reminder post

7
8
Next event reminder post

9
10 NodeSchool Oakland June
Day of Post (written by an organizer)

[Fauntleroy]

There are currently 4 kinds of posts:

• Day of Post: Written by an organizer (not scheduled), a short quip about today's event and an image.
• Day after Post: Written by an organizer (not scheduled), a short quip about yesterday's event, a mention of the next event, a link to the website, and the last event's group photo.
• Next event reminder post: A short quip about nodeschool, reminder of the next event, a link to the website. Does not include an image (I'll try to have a fancy automatically generated OG image in place (like The Onion or WaffleJS)
  
  
• Next event mentor reminder post: A short quip about mentoring, a reminder of the next event, a link to the website. Includes an image of mentors at work.

[Fauntleroy]

There are a couple ways I've thought about handling posts:

• An organizer creates a queue of posts on the Sunday after the event (likely when they make the Day after Post). We could have a bunch of post templates to choose from (somewhere in the GitHub repo? Maybe the wiki?) to copy/paste, or the organizer could just write some custom ones.
  • Pros: Simplicity. More control for organizers.
  • Cons: Requires organizer to take some time to create the post queue (though not much).
• We could create arrays of objects of generic post data for each type (Next event reminder post and Next event mentor reminder post) and then have the scheduler assemble posts each time it tweets. Would need some sort of system to ensure that text and image for mentor posts are not repeated too often.
  • Pros: Completely automatic
  • Cons: More complex. Posts are less controlled and possibly more generic.

Personally I'm leaning towards the first option, since it's simpler and it gives the organizer more control (in case we want or need something custom, like a specific image matched with a specific message). Let me know what you think.