An agency runs social media for a physiotherapy clinic. A post about back pain goes to the clinic manager, who forwards it to the lead physiotherapist, who replies to an older email with a change. Two days later the post goes out, with the wording nobody actually approved.
Nobody did anything wrong. There was simply no agreed path from draft to yes. That path is an approval workflow, and it takes an afternoon to set up.
01The people
Write down who approves what.
Not every post needs the same people. A photo of the new waiting room needs a quick look. A post that says what treatment helps with needs someone who can stand behind the claim. Decide this once, by kind of post, instead of for every post.
- Routine posts.One reviewer on the team. Opening hours, team introductions, a photo of the space.
- Campaigns and offers.The team, then the client. Prices, dates and anything with a deadline.
- Claims.Someone with the expertise, then the client. Health, money, results, anything a regulator or a customer could hold you to.
Name roles rather than people: “the lead physiotherapist”, not “Anna”. People go on holiday. Roles have a stand-in.
02The order
Put the steps in order, the client last.
Run the internal checks first, so the client sees a post that is ready to publish and not a draft with typos. Within one step everyone approves in parallel. The next step starts only when they all have.
Everyone at once
The writer sends the draft to the account manager, the physiotherapist and the clinic manager together. Three sets of comments contradict each other.
Steps in order
Account manager, then the physiotherapist on the claim, then the clinic manager on a version that already holds up.
The person who wrote the post never approves it. And if a step has nobody who can approve right now, the workflow should say so, rather than leave the post waiting in silence.
03The version
Approve a version, not a conversation.
An approval is worth something only when everyone knows what was approved. So each round of review looks at one frozen version: the text, the pictures and the channels, exactly as they will go out. Comments sit on that version, next to the line or the part of the picture they are about.
If the post changes after the yes, it needs a new yes.
That includes the small changes: a new hashtag, a different first photo, a price that went up. Keep a record of who approved which version and when. If a client asks in March why a post said what it said, the answer takes a minute.
04The client
Give the client a link, a date and a default.
Clients do not want another tool to log in to. Send one link that opens the post as it will look on the phone, with two clear buttons: approve, or ask for changes. Add a date to decide by and a reminder the day before.
Then agree in advance what silence means. For a routine post it can mean “publish as planned”. For a claim it should always mean “hold”. Writing this down once saves the awkward message on the morning the post was due.
This is how the Review Room in Kanso works: approval paths with steps in order, one frozen version per round, notes on the picture or the line they are about, and client links with a deadline and a rule for silence. If the feedback itself is the problem, this guide on feedback a writer can use goes with it.
