Social Media Marketing Checklist

Export reach, saves, shares, and link-clicks for last week's posts from Meta Business Suite and TikTok Studio. Filter for organic only — paid amplification distorts what actually resonated. Note any post that drove abnormal add-to-cart traffic in Shopify or Triple Whale; that signal feeds the calendar.

Map posts against the Klaviyo email send schedule, any active site-wide promos, and Q4 / launch dates. Avoid stacking three product-push posts in a row — interleave UGC, education, and lifestyle. Confirm the calendar with the brand manager before briefs go out.

Per the FTC Endorsement Guides, partnered creators must use #ad, "paid partnership," or the platform's built-in branded-content tag — not just "thanks to [brand]." Verify each scheduled creator post for the week has the disclosure in the contract and that the creator knows it's required before posting.

Brief should include shot list, aspect ratios (9:16 for Reels and TikTok, 4:5 for in-feed, 1:1 for catalog), product SKUs, and any retailer / Amazon assets that need parallel formats. Soona briefs work well as a template even if the shoot is in-house.

Use a consistent UTM scheme — utm_source=instagram, utm_medium=organic_social, utm_campaign={post-slug} — so GA4 and Triple Whale attribution doesn't fragment. Reference the Shopify product handle so shoppable tagging in step 'Tag products via Meta Shop and TikTok Shop' lines up.

Check color palette, logo usage, type scale, and any claim language against the substantiation file. Common rejection reasons: unsubstantiated "clinically proven" / "FDA approved" wording, off-brand color treatments, and missing trademark / ® on first reference.

Reference specific frames or copy lines and the brand-guide section being violated. Set a re-submit deadline that still allows the post to ship in this week's calendar — otherwise it slips to next week's batch.

Schedule against your audience's actual peak engagement windows from last quarter's analytics, not the platform's generic recommendation. Stagger Reels and Stories so the feed isn't dominated by one post type on the same day.

Confirm each tagged SKU is in stock in the Shopify catalog feed before scheduling — out-of-stock products silently drop from shoppable posts and the post loses its commerce surface. Hide tags rather than removing the post if a SKU goes out mid-week.

Strip the TikTok watermark before re-uploading anywhere else — Instagram and YouTube both deprioritize watermarked content. Use a clean export from CapCut or the original master file. Adjust captions and hashtags per platform; copy-pasting hurts on all three.

Open Commerce Manager and check the Diagnostics tab for disapproved items, missing GTINs, or policy flags. Disapprovals quietly accumulate and drag dynamic-product-ad performance. Re-submit any item with a fixable reason within the week.

Use Gorgias, Sprout, or the native Meta inbox to sort by question / complaint / UGC mention. Set a 4-hour SLA for product questions during business hours — that response speed measurably moves add-to-cart on tagged posts.

Tag patterns by SKU and reason — sizing, quality, ship-time — so the merchandiser sees the same complaint across three posts and can flag a product issue. Don't argue in public threads; move to DM or email and resolve there.

A like or repost is not a license. Use a tool like Pixlee, Yotpo Visual UGC, or a manual DM template that captures explicit written permission to use the content in organic and paid placements. Save the consent thread; ad platforms increasingly audit creator-rights claims.

Compare blended ROAS in Triple Whale or Northbeam against the platform-reported number — gaps over 30% usually mean attribution-window mismatch or iOS-tracking loss, not real performance. Look at MER alongside ROAS so the headline isn't misleading.

Pause anything with seven-day spend over the per-creative test budget and ROAS below 60% of target. Don't kill new creatives in the learning phase (under 50 conversions); give them the full window before judging.

Scale winning ad sets by 20-30% per step, not 2x — Meta's delivery system reopens learning when you double a budget, which often tanks ROAS for 3-5 days. Refresh creatives on any ad set hitting frequency over 3.0.

Capture organic reach, follower growth, top-three posts by engagement and by attributed revenue, paid spend, blended ROAS, MER, and CAC. One page, with last-week and four-week-trailing comparisons.