How do I set up a Zap to schedule Instagram posts with 30+ photos from Google Drive?

Hi @WeddingPhotography.Art 

One option is to add a Delay (After Queue) step to the Zap.

NOTE: There are limits to using Delay: https://zapier.com/apps/delay/help

A better approach would be to log the uploaded files to a Table via a Zap. (e.g. Zapier Tables, Airtable, GSheets)

Then configure another Zap that triggers on a Schedule to pick a record to use to public to social media, then update the record after posting to social media to indicate the record was used.

Hi @WeddingPhotography.Art 👋

Just wanted to check in to see how things are progressing. Were you able to get this solved using a Delay or by logging the files into a table as Troy suggested?

Keen to ensure you’re all set here so please do let us know whether you need any further assistance at all and we’ll be happy to help! 🙂

Hi! 

Thanks so much for the advice Troy and for following up SamB. 

I was able to get it partially figured out, but did run into some troubles navigating using a table. I tried to figure out Zapier Tables as well as Google sheets, but just couldn’t quite figure out how to get things set up. 

I did figure a way to schedule a post to happen everyday by using a Schedule by Zapier with Pretty Date, and naming the files with dates. It looks like this currently: 

I was really hoping I could figure out a way to have the captions get placed onto a table or sheet, so that I could review the caption before it gets posted. With this current version it just happens automatically, so if GPT comes up with a weird output, I don’t notice until it’s already been published. 

Any ideas? 

Thanks!!! 

Thanks for getting back to me @WeddingPhotography.Art. Great work on this so far! 🙌

What you’d want to do now is split up the workflow across two Zaps. The first Zap would generate the image caption and create the record in the Zapier Table. And a second Zap would post the image once it’s approved.

In the first Zap, instead of having that Instagram action you would have a Create Record (Zapier Tables) action, and in it you’d map the necessary fields from the ChatGPT and Google Drive actions. This would add a record to the table for you to then approve.

Then, in Zapier Tables you’d set up a button to approve a record - see our Trigger and continue Zaps from records guide for more details on how to do that. When creating the button, it will allow you to create a Zap that will be triggered when the approval button is clicked. The second Zap is where you’d have that Instagram action. This will ensure that the post will only be sent to Instagram if the caption is approved.

We have a How to create an approvals table with Zapier Tables guide on our blog which I’d recommend checking out. Granted, it’s not the exact same use case as you’d be posting to Instagram rather than sending a Slack message or email, but it should help to give a better understanding of how to set things up.

Hope that helps to get you pointed in the right direction. If you run into any issues on that or have further questions do let us know!