Context
I was approached by a journalist from a prestigious publication, needing an automation solution to generate social media stories automatically from their articles. The aim was to streamline the creation process and ensure timely sharing of content.
Challenges
The main challenge was to create a system that could extract key elements from article links—such as images and titles—and then generate visually appealing stories consistently. Manual story creation was time-consuming and prone to delays, which hindered the publication's social media engagement.
Solution
To address this, I developed a Google Sheet solution integrated with RenderForm. The process involves entering an article link into the Google Sheet, which triggers a function to extract the article’s image and title automatically. I wrote a custom function to call RenderForm, which uses a pre-designed template to create a story. RenderForm dynamically replaces the image and title to generate a new story based on the provided link.
Outcome
Efficiency: The automated system significantly reduced the time required to create social media stories.
Consistency: Every story maintained a high level of visual quality by using a standardized template.
Increased Engagement: Timely and consistent story generation boosted the publication's presence and engagement on social media platforms.
