Show HN: A social media scheduler and the hoops to go through for each platform
wavegen.aiI recently made a social media scheduler, and had to go through the review process for each social media platform. Given how many moments of frustration there are, I’m gonna share my experience in details to hopefully help a lost soul in the future.
TL;DR: Each platform’s mileage vary a lot, and the overall experience I would rank as LinkedIn > Youtube >> Tiktok >>>>>Meta. So I’ll start from the easiest.
Total review time: 0
No review is needed for the consumer API (sign in + post). The marketing API requires a separate review process, though I cannot speak to that experience.
Their documentation is very up to date and easy to follow, and their API has informative error logs.
### Youtube
Total review time: 6 days
Response time: every 1-2 days
Youtube is the only platform that allows direct communication with your reviewers via email, which makes things much easier.
Pro tip: if your requested scopes appear in different parts of your demo video, make it clear in your video or email. Otherwise reviewers might stop watching the video early and conclude you’re requesting unnecessary permissions.
The API integration is straightforward: there are few requirements for the uploaded video, since youtube takes care of the conversion on their end.
### Tiktok
Total review time: a bit over a week
Response time: every day
The direct posting API requires two separate reviews:
First, a general review of the integration’s production config, which is easy.
The other one is the audit of the direct posting experience. They want to make sure you follow their instruction to provide users with necessary legal documents & checkboxes. It’s quite complicated, but luckily, the instruction is clear and up to date.
Their feedback is provided in the tooltip on the reject status (facepalm), so it was initially hard to find and oftentimes hard to understand. When I tried to clarify the feedback, my support requests were never responded…
### Meta
Total review time: 17 days
Response time: every day
Oh boy... where do I begin?
Meta requires three separate reviews:
- Business review: you need a business EIN for this - Access verification: had to explain the product five times to prove I'm a tech provider before approval - App review: Meta is the only platform that asked for a test account and password to test the product. What I optimistically viewed as free QA turned into a frustrating process of unverifiable bug reports. They reported issues that I couldn’t reproduce (cannot login, cannot upload, publish button disabled, etc). A separate support team has been answering my requests for clarification, and even they couldn’t reproduce either. I tested across multiple browsers and operating systems, and even attempted to connect with someone in the Philippines to test(where the review team is reportedly based) — all without success. With a limit of 5 submissions per week, it took 12 submissions in 17 days to finally get approval.
Instagram's documentation and API are equally confusing. Their listed media requirements are outdated — for example, they claim to only accept JPEG files, yet PNG files work fine. Their API unhelpfully returns just "ERROR" with no debugging information. I had to test numerous media files through trial and error to determine the actual requirements.
Phew, I'm just relieved this is all behind me now. ([wavegen.ai](http://wavegen.ai) if you want to check it out.)