Weekly social media posts from your product catalog: from picking products to the calendar

For a shop with a product catalog, the social media problem is rarely a lack of ideas. It's that every Monday starts with the same question: which products are we showing this week? With 120 products, picking gets hard, and each pick still needs a photo, a caption and some design work.

First, we turn product selection into a rule that works with any tool. Then we follow a fictional ceramics shop as its products go from a catalog feed to draft posts.

Which products should you post this week?

Choosing from scratch every week is tiring and inconsistent. The most common trap is showing bestsellers over and over, which spotlights what already sells and hides the rest of the catalog. Pick through five lenses instead:

• Check the season: what will people need in the next 2-3 weeks? For ceramics, that's soup bowls in autumn and gift mugs in December.
• Check stock: don't feature anything with fewer than 5 units left. A customer who clicks through from the post will hit a "sold out" label.
• Factor in margin: give your highest-margin products at least one week a month.
• Show new arrivals within their first two weeks. Seeing something new first is one of the reasons people keep following a shop.
• Rotate bestsellers: every other week rather than every week, and a different one each time.

Don't apply all five lenses every week; spread them across the month. Each Monday then answers one question, and by month's end different corners of the catalog have had their turn.

A sample 4-week rotation

Six to eight products per week is plenty. If you post 8 times a week, some products can appear twice: once as a single image, once in a carousel that shows several products together. Write the rule table once, then just apply it each week.

From catalog feed to draft posts, step by step

Once the rotation is set, it's time to turn products into posts. In VonaHub this happens on the bulk content generation screen, which is part of the Business, Enterprise and Agency plans. Here is Toprak Ceramics' Monday routine:

1. 1

   Connect your catalog feed

   Add your Google Shopping XML or Meta catalog feed. No feed? You can also enter products and services by hand. The catalog syncs every night at 03:00, so price and stock changes you make on the site during the day are in VonaHub the next morning.

2. 2

   Pick this week's products

   Select the products from your rotation in the product list. You can pick up to 20 at a time, which is more than enough for a shop that features 6-8 products a week.

3. 3

   Turn on "Keep product image"

   With this mode on, the product's own catalog photo is left unchanged. Only the scene, lighting and background are added: the mug stays the same mug, now sitting on a breakfast table.

4. 4

   Describe the series

   Write what you want to say in a single prompt. The Week preset creates 8 posts and the Month preset 30; you can also set the number yourself, up to 150 per run. Then choose one of the 8 frequency options, the platform and the posting time.

5. 5

   Review the drafts on the calendar

   Posts land on their dates as drafts, and none of them publish on their own. Edit them, schedule them or send them for approval through the client approval portal.

Name the week's focus in the prompt. "Introduce the new glazed mug series around the morning coffee moment, warm but understated" gives a far more consistent series than "promote these products". If you run several shops, the shop owner can approve drafts through the client approval portal.

Why do the logo and the price follow separate rules?

Two details break trust in a product post faster than anything else: a warped logo and a wrong price.

The logo isn't drawn into the image. It is stamped on in code after the image is ready, so the lettering never distorts and it sits in the same corner on every post. Your profile grid won't show it large on one post and crooked on the next.

The price badge is added only when the catalog price is less than 7 days old. If your feed hasn't updated in a week, or a product's price data is stale, no price goes on that product's image.

Which format should a product post use?

A product post doesn't have to be a single image. On Instagram, a feed post works for one product, a carousel (2-10 images) for several products from the same series, and a Reel for the moment the product is in use. We cover which format suits what in Reels, carousel or story: which format?.

• Launch a new series with a carousel: the whole series on the first slide, single products on the rest.
• Show a bestseller in a feed post and use the caption to describe one moment of it in use.
• Add a short reminder to your story during gift season and link to the product page.
• Share a Reel of a piece being shaped in the workshop; with handmade goods, the process explains the price.

VonaHub checks the format before publishing: feed and carousel images must be within a 0.75-1.91 aspect ratio, and captions can't exceed 2,200 characters or 30 hashtags. A draft that breaks a rule shows a warning before it goes live.

What should you check before connecting your feed?

The cleaner the feed, the fewer edits the drafts need. Customers see the product title too, and with "Keep product image" on, the main image sits at the center of the post. Give this list 15 minutes before you connect:

What does a week look like in practice?

1. 1.On Monday morning, check this week's focus in the rotation table and pick 6-8 products.
2. 2.Start an 8-post series with the Week preset using those products.
3. 3.Read the drafts: are the product name, size and material right, and does the scene fit the product?
4. 4.Add one or two non-product posts (workshop, care tips) by hand.
5. 5.Schedule the week on the calendar or send it to your business partner for approval.

To prepare a whole month at once, use the Month preset. For shops whose catalog changes often, though, working weekly keeps you closer to stock and price changes: Monday's pick is actually in stock that week. For the bigger picture of social media in online retail, see our e-commerce guide.