There can be a lot of moving parts when it comes to managing your town’s social media – especially with different departments contributing content. Social News Desk offers a way to streamline posts and control the message with Approvals. This guest blog has been written by Sarah Nolting, Communications & Tourism Manager – Town of Little Elm, Texas. Sarah has first-hand experience with SND’s Approvals feature.
If you’ve ever hit “publish” on a post and then immediately spotted a typo—or worse, realized it wasn’t quite the right message—you’re not alone. For the Town of Little Elm’s Tourism & Communications team, managing social media across multiple departments means a lot of moving parts. That’s exactly why having an approvals system in place is not just helpful—it’s essential.
We’ve been using Social News Desk’s Approvals feature for a little over two months now, and it has truly transformed the way we work day-to-day, giving us peace of mind, smoother collaboration, and better content across the board. The Approvals feature has allowed our team to see edits in real time from supervisors and be able to not only make the changes necessary, but review what needs to be corrected.
Why an Approvals System Is a Must-Have
When multiple people are contributing to your town’s social media—Parks and Recreation, Police, Fire, Special Events—it’s easy for things to get chaotic. Messages might get duplicated. Tones can vary wildly. And sometimes, posts go live before they’ve had a second look.
We knew we needed a way to:
- Keep content consistent and polished
- Review and catch errors before publishing
- Track who posted what and when
- Empower teams to contribute while keeping oversight in place
Basically, we needed structure without making people feel micromanaged. That’s exactly what the approvals process in Social News Desk has given us.
Our Experience with Social News Desk’s Approvals
With SND, we can set different user roles—so staff across our Tourism & Communications Department can draft their posts, but nothing goes live until the person in charge of approvals for that specific page gives it the green light. For us, the process has been:
- A staff member creates a draft post in SND (no more emailing Word docs or copy-pasting from texts and no more shouting across cubes in the office).
- The draft gets submitted for approval with a single click.
- Someone on the approval team reviews it—sometimes we approve right away, sometimes we send feedback for a quick tweak.
- Once it’s good to go, we either schedule it or publish it on the spot.
It all happens within the same platform. No back-and-forth emails. No confusion about which version is final. It has been a smooth transition for both myself approving posts and my team creating the posts.
How It’s Helped Our Day-to-Day Workflow
We’ve seen some improvements in how we work, especially in quality control and brand management, collaboration, and just overall smarter scheduling. Every post gets a second set of eyes, which means fewer typos, clearer messaging, and a consistent voice that sounds like “Little Elm”—not ten different people speaking at once.
Team members love being able to craft their own content but also have a second set of eyes look it over. I feel as though this has helped boost confidence in my teams understanding of our brand and voice.
With everything in one place, we can see what’s going out each day and avoid crowding our feed. It’s easier to spot gaps in content or overlapping messages before they become a problem too.
Why It Works for Us (and Might Work for You, Too)
The beauty of the approvals system is that it doesn’t slow things down—it actually helps us move faster, because everyone knows the process. My team can draft posts confidently, knowing someone will catch anything they missed. And we can focus on strategy, not chasing down post drafts or fixing errors after the fact.
Plus, having a clear workflow builds trust across our internal team. Everyone knows what’s expected, and we all work better together.
At the end of the day, good communication builds community—and that starts with the right tools. Social News Desk’s approvals system has helped us stay organized, professional, and responsive, all while making room for more voices in our digital outreach. If your team is juggling multiple contributors, managing sensitive info, or just wants to clean up your workflow, I recommend the Approvals function in Social News Desk. It has been efficient and effective when training new employees. And the best part is—when it’s time for the training wheels to come off, the approvals can too!
Want to get started with Approvals? Have questions? We’re here to help – send us an email: support@socialnewsdesk.com.
This preceding post is a guest blog written by Sarah Nolting, Communications & Tourism Manager for the Town of Little Elm, Texas.
