Welcome to Swat.io! 🎉
In order to help you and your team get started right away, we've broken down the initial setup process into 5 essential steps. This guide walks you through the basic configuration, so your Inbox and calendar can come to life.
1. The base: Connect channels
An empty workspace isn't much fun. Before you can plan posts and receive messages, we first need to connect your social media channels to Swat.io:
Open the general "Workspace Settings" by clicking on your account name in the bottom-left corner.
Navigate to Workspace > Channels and click "Add Channel" in the top right.
Select the network you want to add (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn).
Follow the authentication process and add your channel to Swat.io.
We're currently working on an English version of this video. In the meantime, feel free to turn on English captions directly on YouTube:
Important: To establish the connection, you need at least workspace manager permissions in Swat.io, as well as admin rights on the respective social network for each channel you want to connect.
👉 Helpful Articles:
2. The team: Invite colleagues
Swat.io is a collaboration tool. Invite your team so you can work on content together and use approval workflows.
Go back to Settings and select Administration > Users > Add User (top left), if you want to add a new member to your organization.
If a colleague is already part of your Swat.io organization and just needs to be added to a specific workspace, select Settings > Workspace > Members > Add Members instead.
Here you can also define who gets which permissions. On the organization level in the administration settings, you determine which member has access to a workspace and in the workspace settings, you set the permissions for individual channels (e.g. who is allowed to "publish posts", who can only "create drafts" and who has "read only" access).
We're currently working on an English version of this video. In the meantime, feel free to turn on English captions directly on YouTube:
👉 Helpful Articles:
3. Plan content: The Publisher
The Publisher is your editorial command center. Here you get an overview of all planned posts and create content for all channels in one place.
This and much more you can do here:
Create posts (Composer): Click the "Create" button or the plus on a selected day in the calendar view to open the Composer. Here you can write a caption, a text and upload images or videos. Depending on which network you select, different post types are available (e.g. photo, video, reel, etc.).
Check format requirements automatically: Every network has strict rules for image sizes, video lengths or aspect ratios.
The Composer shows you the technical specifications directly at upload.
If a file doesn't comply with the social network's API (e.g. the wrong aspect ratio for a reel), Swat.io will warn you with a blue notice before you approve a post that would otherwise fail to publish.
Preview & approval: On the right side of the Composer, you always see a preview of how the post will look on your community's smartphone. Not every post has to go live immediately. You can also save posts as a draft or assign them to colleagues for approval. The color-coded status in the calendar (e.g. yellow for "Suggested", green for "Approved") always shows you the current state of any post.
Use the activity log: On the right side of the Composer, next to the preview, you'll find the activity log. Here you can leave notes for your team, mention colleagues with @mentions and see at a glance whether a post was published successfully or the exact reason why publishing failed.
Efficiency through duplicating: If you want to easily publish a post on multiple platforms, you don't have to recreate it every time.
Create the post for one channel first (e.g. LinkedIn).
Use the duplicate function to copy it to additional channels (e.g. Facebook) with one click.
You can decide whether the post content should stay in sync across all duplicates when changed or whether you want to adjust each one individually.
We're currently working on an English version of this video. In the meantime, feel free to turn on English captions directly on YouTube:
👉 Helpful Articles:
4. Community management: The Inbox
Comments, mentions and private messages from your community land in the Inbox. Swat.io works on a ticket basis: Every post or conversation corresponds to a ticket that contains the individual users' comments and needs to be handled.
Here's how you work efficiently:
Ticket system: Every post becomes a "ticket". This guarantees that nothing gets overlooked. A ticket stays "open" until you actively work on it and archive it. Individual user comments always carry unique comment numbers visible at all times.
Respond & interact: You can reply directly from Swat.io, like comments, hide or delete them if needed. The available functions depend on the network and its API capabilities. You can find more details here in our help center.
Internal collaboration: Need help with a reply? Just like in Publisher, you can assign tickets to colleagues per @mention or leave internal notes in the activity log. These actions are only visible to your team, not to the person on social media who wrote the comment. Everything is recorded in one place.
Inbox Zero: Once a message has been answered or marked as read, click the button to "archive" it. Your goal is always an empty inbox, "Inbox Zero", the sign that your community is well taken care of. Should a new comment arrive in an archived ticket, it will be moved back to the "new tickets" queue.
We're currently working on an English version of this video. In the meantime, feel free to turn on English captions directly on YouTube:
👉 Helpful Articles:
5. Billing: Plan & invoices
To make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes, you'll find all information about your current plan including invoices in the settings under Billing.
Here's where you manage the financial aspects:
The full overview (dashboard): On the billing page, you can see all the information about your current Swat.io license in a clear layout. You'll see at a glance how many channels and users are included in your plan and whether you still have room to grow.
Adjust your plan (upgrades & downgrades): Your team is growing or you need more features?
Upgrade: You can upgrade your plan at any time and from our Large plan onwards, individually add more channels, workspaces or users to your existing plan. The change takes effect immediately.
Downgrade: If you want to reduce resources, you can downgrade your plan or remove add-ons you no longer need, such as the Inbox or Insights, at any time. The changes are reflected on your invoice with your next billing cycle.
Invoices & payment data: Here you'll find a complete history of all your past payments and you can download every invoice directly as a PDF. You'll also find an overview of your billing period, your payment information and your payment method.
👉 Helpful Articles: