Creating a manual post
Written By Nick
Last updated 3 days ago
When the auto-generated posts don't cover what you want to say — a personal announcement, a fresh take on an older album, filling a gap on the calendar, a promotion — you can build an Instagram or blog post from scratch. Manual posts use the same editors as auto-generated ones, just starting from a blank slate.
How to create a manual post
Go to the Posts page.
Click the post type dropdown and choose Instagram Post or Blog Post.
Pick the album you want the post to draw from.
The editor opens — empty caption or body, no photos selected yet.
[Screenshot: Posts page — manual post creation entry]
What's the same as an auto-generated post
The editor itself is identical. For Instagram, you get the three-column layout with album details on the left, the caption tab and Instagram Settings tab in the center, and selected photos on the right. For blog posts, you get the block editor with the album's photos in the right panel for drag-and-drop.
The lifecycle is also the same — manual posts start in Needs Approval and move through Approved → Scheduled → Published just like auto-generated posts. They count toward the album's Needs Approval total and show up alongside auto-generated posts on the Posts page and calendar.
What's different
Caption and body start blank. No AI draft, no starting point. You write the post yourself.
No photos are pre-selected. Add photos by clicking the "+" tile (Instagram) or dragging from the right panel (blog).
No vendor or subject tagging is pre-populated. Open the Instagram Settings tab to add collaborators and tags manually.
For Instagram, you can add up to 10 photos (1 = single image, 2–10 = carousel). For blog posts, you can add as many photos as the post needs, with the first one acting as the featured image.
Saving and approving
Manual posts have the same required fields as auto-generated ones before they can save or approve:
Instagram posts need at least one photo and a non-empty caption.
Blog posts need a title and body content.
If a required field is missing, Save and Approve Post will be disabled until you fill it in. From there, the flow is the same as any other post — Save to keep editing later, Approve Post to send it to the queue.
Notes
Manual posts are tied to an album. You can't create one without picking an album first, since photos are scoped to that album.
To use photos that aren't in any album yet, upload them to an album first. The picker only sees photos that already exist in Social Valet.
Connecting Instagram or WordPress isn't required to draft a manual post. You can write and save without a connection — but the post won't publish until the platform is connected.