The idea: I decide, the computer handles timing
I write and approve the content. The computer only handles the timing.
1. I approve the content. Claude, the AI assistant I work with, drafts the posts. I read them and say yes or no.
2. Each post gets a date. The images, captions and links sit in a folder with the day and time each one should go live.
3. A small program checks every hour. It looks at the folder, finds anything that's due, and publishes it through Pinterest's and Meta's own official systems.
4. It keeps a record. Every post is written down as "posted," so nothing goes out twice.
There's no paid scheduling tool and no monthly posting-app subscription. It runs on GitHub, which is free for what I'm doing.
What's in the queue right now
What broke, and why I'm telling you
This is the part most "I automated everything" posts skip.
1. A confusing error that pointed at the wrong problem. My first Facebook post failed with a message about a feature Meta had retired. The real cause was simpler. Posting to a Page needs a Page-specific key, and I was handing it the general one. The fix took a few lines. Finding it took much longer.
2. Instagram wasn't ready yet. Instagram Stories need a moment to process before they can be published. My program tried too fast and got "media not ready." Now it waits and checks before publishing.
3. One failure blocked everything. When the Instagram Story failed, the program stopped and the regular posts behind it never went out. Now one problem can't block the rest.
4. My reporting was lying. My analytics report said every pin had zero views. Pinterest's own page showed thousands. The program was reading the numbers from the wrong part of Pinterest's response. Nothing was wrong with the pins. I only caught it because I compared the report to Pinterest itself.
That last one is the lesson I'd hand to any business owner using automation: check the machine's report against the real thing. A dashboard that says zero isn't always telling the truth.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't make the content good. I still choose what to say and I approve every post. It doesn't join groups, reply to comments or message anyone for me. Those stay manual, on purpose.
I also don't know yet how much business it brings in. In the 30 days from August 31 to September 30, my Pinterest account got about 7,400 impressions and 5 clicks to my website. That's the starting line, not a win.
If you want to try something like this
Start with one platform and one week of content. Get one post out by itself before you schedule fifty. Keep a human in the approval step. And keep checking that the numbers match reality.
I built this with Claude. If you want to try it, here's my link.