Getting Started with StretchSocial

What is StretchSocial?

StretchSocial is the social media planning and scheduling app inside StretchSuite. It lets you write one post, target several social networks at once, route it through an approval workflow, schedule it on a calendar, and follow it through a governed publishing queue — all from a single, organization-scoped workspace.

Think of it as your team's shared control room for social content: drafts, approvals, scheduling, connected channels, and performance signals live in one place, and everything you see belongs to your organization only.

The eight areas of the app

The left-hand navigation has eight tabs. Knowing what each one does is the fastest way to get oriented:

• Dashboard — an at-a-glance summary: platforms, posts, connections, scheduled content, and pending approvals, plus campaign-mix and status charts and a seven-day schedule view.
• Compose — the multi-network editor where you write a post and attach the networks you want to target.
• Calendar — the approval calendar showing what's scheduled over the next seven days, with tools to schedule and reschedule.
• Approvals — the review queue where drafts are sent to review, approved, or rejected before scheduling.
• Queue — the live list of publishing jobs, one per targeted network, with status and any errors.
• Analytics — campaign analytics, post-status mix, and a per-post table of targets, queue jobs, and completed/failed counts.
• Insights — readiness, campaign mix, connected channels, and queue load rolled into a quality dashboard.
• Connections — the social accounts (channels) your workspace can post to.

Concept: governed publishing. Every post moves through clear states — draft → in review → approved → scheduled → queued → published. Live delivery to the networks is controlled centrally, so nothing goes out without passing through approval and the queue. This keeps agency and multi-client posting safe and auditable. See Understanding governed publishing for the full picture.

Your first five steps

1. Open StretchSocial and review the Dashboard. The stat strip at the top shows how many platforms, posts, connections, scheduled posts, and pending approvals your workspace has. On a brand-new workspace most counts will be zero — that's expected.
2. Add a connection. Go to the Connections tab and click New connection. Enter a platform key (for example linkedin), give the account a label such as Acme LinkedIn, add a handle, and save. This registers the channel your posts can target.
3. Compose your first post. Open the Compose tab, click New post, write a Body, then click one or more network buttons (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and so on) to target them. Add a Campaign name and a CTA or Destination URL to raise the readiness score.
4. Send it through approval and schedule it. Save the draft, open Approvals to approve it, then set a Schedule date/time in the composer or use the Calendar tab to pick a publish time.
5. Watch it in the Queue. Open the Queue tab to see one publishing job per network, each with its platform, status, and scheduled time.

Tip: The chip beside the composer heading (for example 84/100 ready) is a live readiness score. Aim for 70+ before you schedule — it turns green and means your caption, campaign, network, and call-to-action are all in place.

A quick worked example

You're announcing a webinar:

1. Connections → New connection: platform key linkedin, label Acme LinkedIn.
2. Compose → New post: Title Q3 Webinar announce, Body Join our live session on scaling social ops. Save your seat 👇 #Webinar, click LinkedIn and X, Campaign Q3 Webinar, CTA Register, Destination URL https://acme.example/webinar.
3. The readiness chip jumps to roughly 98/100 and all four approval checks pass.
4. Create post, then Approvals → Approve, then Calendar → Schedule for Tuesday 10:00.
5. Queue now shows two jobs — one for LinkedIn, one for X.

Tips

• Counts of zero on a new workspace are normal — add a connection first, then a post.
• Use short, internal Titles for posts; the Body is what actually goes to the networks.
• If a tab fails to load, use the Refresh button (top-right) or Retry on the error message — most load errors are transient.
• You can target one post to many networks; each becomes its own queue job so they succeed or fail independently.

Where to go next

• Wire up your accounts: Connecting your channels.
• Learn the composer in depth: Composing multi-network posts.
• Route work for review: The approval workflow in StretchSocial.
• Plan ahead: Scheduling posts and the approval calendar.
• Understand why nothing auto-publishes: Understanding governed publishing.