This means Quality Assurance. Any and all items that are presented to the client such as content calendars, campaigns assets have to go through a QA process to check for errors!
Quality assurance (QA) is a process used to assess the quality of digital marketing campaigns and marketing operations like: social media content calendar creation, email campaigns and short form video production.
Let’s start with a quick story about the importance of QA and what can happen, this was taken from a real-world example.
One Monday morning, Sarah, an account manager at a mid-sized tech company, walked into the office feeling confident. Over the weekend, her team had published a LinkedIn post announcing a new product launch. It was intended to be a proud moment for the company—a showcase of their innovation and hard work. However, as Sarah settled into her desk, she noticed her inbox flooded with emails, Slack messages, and even a text from the CEO. Something was wrong.
The LinkedIn post had gone viral—but not for the reasons anyone hoped. The post was riddled with spelling errors, awkward phrasing, and formatting issues. Instead of reading “Cutting-edge AI solutions,” the headline mistakenly said “Cuting-edg AI solutons.” The body text contained broken links and placeholder text like “[insert benefits here].” To make matters worse, the tone of the post was overly casual for LinkedIn’s professional audience.
The post had been shared widely—not just by employees but also by key clients and industry partners who were tagging the company with comments ranging from confusion to outright mockery. One client joked, “If this is how they handle their social media, I wonder how they handle their products.”
The error wasn’t just embarrassing; it cast doubt on the company’s professionalism and attention to detail.
The Fallout
Sarah’s day quickly spiralled into crisis management:
- Internal Scrutiny: The executive team demanded an explanation. How could such an error slip through? Was there no quality control in place? Sarah had to admit that the post had been rushed out without proper review due to tight deadlines.
- Client Concerns: Major clients who saw the post began questioning the company’s reliability. One client even requested a meeting to discuss whether similar lapses might occur in their ongoing projects.
- Team Morale: Within her team, finger-pointing began. The junior social media manager blamed unclear instructions, while others argued that there should have been a final review process before publishing.
Lessons Learned: The Importance of QA in Social Media
This incident became a turning point for Sarah’s company. It highlighted the critical need for a robust quality assurance (QA) process in social media management. Here’s what they implemented to prevent future mistakes:
- Content Review Workflow: Every social media post now goes through multiple layers of review—content creators draft it, managers edit it, and a final approver signs off before publication.
- Spellcheck and Grammar Tools: They integrated tools like Grammarly and Hemingway to catch basic spelling and grammatical errors before posts are finalized.
- Brand Guidelines: A comprehensive style guide was developed to ensure consistent tone, formatting, and professionalism across all platforms.
- Scheduled Posts: Instead of rushing content out in real time, posts are now scheduled at least 24 hours in advance to allow time for thorough review.
- Post-Mortem Analysis: After every campaign or significant post, the team conducts a review to identify what worked well and what can be improved.
Why QA Matters
Social media is not just a casual communication tool; it’s a public-facing extension of your brand. A single poorly executed post can damage trust with clients, partners, and employees alike. As one expert noted, “The currency of social media is not money but trust”[5]. Quality assurance ensures that every piece of content aligns with your brand values and meets professional standards before it reaches your audience.
For Sarah’s company, this painful experience underscored that even small oversights can have outsized consequences in today’s hyper-connected world. By implementing a strong QA process, they were able to rebuild trust with their audience—and ensure that future posts would reflect their commitment to excellence.
As you can see, something as seemingly simple as a social media post can have a butterfly effect, one small issue having much larger and more consequential outcomes. We want to avoid the butterfly effect in our day-to-day marketing operations at all costs.
The solution? A strong quality assurance process that is not so overwhelming that it makes a marketer’s job unbearable. We need to strike a balance between strong QA and the “quality of life” of the marketing team.
Let’s break it down by the following common Marketing deliverables:
- Digital Marketing Campaigns.
- Social Media Content Calendar.
- Short Form Video Productions.
Quality Assurance for Digital Marketing Campaigns
It involves testing design, content, and user experience to ensure that everything is working as intended. Quality assurance helps digital marketers identify issues before launching campaigns and can help improve their overall effectiveness. Here are some steps for setting up a great quality assurance process for digital marketing campaigns:
- Set clear objectives for the campaign – Before beginning any QA tasks, it is important to have a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve with your campaign. This will help you determine what tests need to be performed and which areas should receive special attention during the QA process.
- Plan ahead and set milestones – Once you have set your goals, it’s important to create milestones and deadlines that will serve as checkpoints throughout the QA process. Having these in place will allow you to make sure everything is on track and make adjustments if needed in order to meet your targets.
- Test all aspects of a campaign – The QA process should include testing every element of a digital marketing campaign such as creative, text, links, forms & surveys, tracking code and landing pages etc., in order to ensure that everything works as expected when pushed live.
- Document test results – During testing it is important to document all test results including screenshots or videos so that they can be reviewed at a later date if needed. This will provide additional evidence if issues arise after launch where further investigation may be necessary.
- Involve stakeholders in QA review – Stakeholders like product managers or developers should also be involved in reviewing test results as they may spot things that were missed during the initial QA process that could impact the success of the campaign going forward.
By following these steps, marketers can ensure their digital marketing campaigns are high quality and achieve their desired outcomes when pushed live.
Quality Assurance for a LinkedIn Social Media Content Calendar
1. Content Development
- Ensure all LinkedIn posts are aligned with the client’s brand tone, voice, and messaging guidelines.
- Confirm that post topics align with the client’s content strategy and goals (e.g., thought leadership, lead generation).
- Verify that the content calendar includes:
- Post dates and times.
- Post copy (headlines, body text).
- Visual assets (images, videos, or documents like PDFs).
- Links to external resources (if applicable).
- Hashtags and mentions (if relevant).
- Check that all links are functional and direct users to the correct destination.
- Ensure proper formatting for LinkedIn-specific requirements:
- Character limits: Headlines (max ~150 characters), body text (~3000 characters max).
- Avoid overloading posts with hashtags; stick to 3–5 relevant ones.
- Confirm that visual assets meet LinkedIn’s recommended dimensions:
- Images: 1200 x 627 pixels.
- Videos: MP4 format, max file size of 5GB, duration between 3 seconds to 10 minutes.
2. Smartsheet Setup
- Verify that the Smartsheet content calendar is structured with clear columns for:
- Post Date/Time
- Post Copy
- Visual Assets (with links or attachments)
- Status (e.g., Draft, In Review, Approved)
- Client Feedback
- Assigned To
- Ensure all team members have the correct permissions in Smartsheet to edit or comment as needed.
- Confirm that automation rules are set up in Smartsheet for notifications (e.g., when a post moves to “Needs Approval”).
3. Internal Review
- Proofread all post copy for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity.
- Verify consistency in tone and style across all posts.
- Cross-check hashtags for relevance and accuracy.
- Ensure visual assets are high-quality and align with the client’s branding guidelines.
- Confirm compliance with LinkedIn’s advertising or organic content policies.
4. Client Feedback Process
- Share the content calendar with the client via Smartsheet using “View Only” or “Comment” permissions (as agreed upon).
- Notify the client when new drafts are ready for review.
- Ensure there is a dedicated column or field in Smartsheet for client feedback/comments on each post.
- Track changes requested by the client using Smartsheet’s version history or comments section.
- Confirm that all client feedback has been addressed before moving posts to “Approved.”
5. Final Approval
- Before marking posts as “Approved,” double-check:
- All edits from internal reviews and client feedback have been implemented.
- Visuals and copy match the approved versions in Smartsheet.
- Scheduled dates/times align with the overall campaign timeline.
6. Scheduling & Publishing
- Export approved posts from Smartsheet to your scheduling tool (e.g., Hootsuite, Sprout Social) or LinkedIn’s native scheduler.
- Double-check scheduled posts against the approved content calendar to ensure accuracy in:
- Copy
- Visuals
- Posting times
- Conduct a final QA check of scheduled posts before they go live.
7. Post-Publishing QA
- Monitor published posts on LinkedIn to confirm they appear as intended (e.g., no formatting errors or broken links).
- Track engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares) to ensure performance aligns with expectations.
8. Documentation & Reporting
- Update Smartsheet with publishing status (e.g., Published) for each post after it goes live.
- Document any client-requested last-minute changes or updates for future reference.
- Prepare a summary report of LinkedIn post performance at the end of the campaign period or monthly cycle.
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