Getting Started

Go from signup to your first published posts in under 15 minutes. This guide walks you through the complete setup process.

Sign up and pick a plan

Visit socialengine.pro and click "Start Your 7-Day Free Trial." Choose the plan that fits your business — Starter (up to 5 locations), Growth (up to 20), or Enterprise (unlimited). You won't be charged during the trial.

[Screenshot: signup page with plan selection]

Complete the onboarding wizard

After signing up, the onboarding wizard walks you through setting up your brand voice — your tone, personality, and how you want your content to sound. You'll also add your first location with its address, phone number, and amenities.

Tip: Be specific with your brand voice. Instead of "professional," try "Friendly, helpful, like a knowledgeable neighbor who always has great advice." The more detail you give, the better your AI-generated content will be.

Connect your Facebook & Instagram pages

Go to Settings → Meta Connection and click "Connect with Facebook." Log into your Facebook account and grant SocialEngine access to the Pages you want to manage. Instagram Business accounts connected to those Pages will be included automatically.

Note: You need admin access to the Facebook Pages you want to connect. If you manage Pages through a Business Manager, make sure your personal account has Page admin permissions.

[Screenshot: Meta Connection settings with connected pages]

Configure content pillars and formatting rules

In Settings → Brand Configuration, set up your content pillars. These are the categories of content you want to post — for example, Educational (30%), Promotional (25%), Community (25%), and Seasonal (20%). The percentages control how much of each type is generated.

You can also set formatting rules: how hooks should be written, what your CTAs should look like, and any guardrails (topics to avoid, required disclaimers, etc.).

Generate your first batch of posts

Go to the Content Calendar tab and click "Generate Posts." SocialEngine will create posts for each of your locations across all your content pillars. Each post is quality-scored (A through D grade) so you can see how well it matches your brand voice.

Generation typically takes 1-2 minutes for a full month of content across all locations.

[Screenshot: Content Calendar with generated posts]

Review and approve posts in the Approval Queue

Switch to the Approval Queue tab. Here you'll see all pending posts. For each one, you can:

Approve — moves it to the publishing queue
Edit — modify the caption, hashtags, or image before approving
Reject — remove it with a reason (you can edit and re-approve later)
View A/B variants — compare alternative caption styles

Tip: Click on any post card to expand the full editor. You can also click "Generate" on the card to create an AI image specifically matched to that post's content.

Schedule posts for publishing

Approved posts appear in the Publishing tab, organized by status: Ready, Scheduled, and Published. Posts are automatically scheduled based on your per-location publishing schedule (set in Settings).

You can also drag posts on the Content Calendar to reschedule them to different dates. Each location can have its own posting days and times.

[Screenshot: Publishing tab with scheduled posts]

Track performance in Analytics

Once posts start publishing, the Analytics tab shows you engagement across all locations. You'll see:

Engagement metrics — reach, likes, comments, shares per post and per location
Pillar performance — which content types get the most engagement
Best time to post — a day/hour heatmap showing when your audience is most active
Competitor benchmarking — compare your engagement against competitors you track

You can export reports as CSV or PDF from the Analytics tab.

What's next? Explore the feature guides in the sidebar to learn more about each capability. If you need help, email support@socialengine.pro — we typically respond within 4 hours during business hours.