Creating your first Calendar
You can begin a free trial of HeyOrca here. Once you fill out your information, you will be sent an email to set up a password. In HeyOrca you can begin setting up your first calendar.
Once you've got your HeyOrca trial account set up, you can refer to our video guide below, or a detailed guide here to create your first calendar and publish your first post!
First, you can choose a name for your calendar
Then you can connect your first social account. Make sure you are logged into the correct account in another tab
Once you connect your first social account, you can begin using publishing or continue setting up your account.
Note: If you are trying to connect an Instagram business account or Facebook page, click on edit settings when you are redirected to Facebook to ensure that you have the permissions for your pages turned on.
Click on "Edit Settings" on this page
Click on "Select All"
Ensure all permissions are turned on here
You will be redirected to HeyOrca where you will be shown a list of pages you can connect to your calendar.
Not seeing the page you're looking for? Click here for more information.
Managing Your Calendars
Calendar Settings
Each calendar has its own Calendar Settings. Only Calendar owners, Internal admins, and External admins have access to the calendar settings. To go to your Calendar Settings, go into your calendar and click on the gear icon
In the Calendar Settings you can:
Edit calendar name
Edit calendar timezone
Access your Universal access link
Access your Text to Media Library number (contact Support to set this up)
Connect and/or remove social accounts
Set or change your Instagram notification receiver
Enable or disable publishing for your social accounts
Add or remove Internal and External users
Edit users’ calendar permissions
Edit post approval reminders for the calendar
Delete the calendar
Here is an article that explains what you can edit in your Calendar Settings.
Adding calendars
You can add a new calendar to your account by clicking “New Calendar” on the side navigation bar or on your main dashboard.
If you are currently at your calendar limit, you will receive a message that will prompt you to upgrade your account.
On the next screen, you will be able to choose how many total calendars you need and then you can click “Subscribe”.
The next screen will allow you to edit or add your account information and checkout. You can also add any new coupons at this stage.
Note: The price you see here does not show any existing discounts you might have.
If your account is not on our current pricing structure, you will need to reach out to our support team to upgrade your account. You can reach our support team using the in app chat or by emailing support@heyorca.com
Here is a video that shows how to create a new calendar.
Connecting social channels to your calendar
Connecting an Instagram Business account to HeyOrca
To connect an Instagram account to HeyOrca as a business profile, you will need to confirm a few things:
1. Is your Instagram account a business profile? To check this:
• Log into the Instagram account
• Go to your Settings
• Click on Account
• Scroll to the bottom
If it is a business account, it will say "switch to Personal Account"!
2. Is your Instagram account connected to a Facebook page? To check this:
• Log into Facebook
• Go to the Facebook page that your Instagram account should be connected to
• Go to your page Settings
• Click on the tab that says Instagram
Your Instagram account should be listed there!
Note: You should not see a message saying “Review Connection” anywhere on this page. If you do see this message, an admin on the Facebook page will need to click on the message and follow the steps.
3. To connect the Instagram account to HeyOrca, you will need to have admin permissions on the connected Facebook page. Here are two ways to check that:
Through the Facebook page:
• Log into Facebook
• Go to the connected Facebook page
• Go to your page Settings
• Click on Page Roles
You should see your name listed under either Admin or Editor!
Here is a video that shows how to do this.
OR
Through Facebook Business Manager:
• Log into Facebook
• Go to Business manager
• Go to Business settings
• Click on Pages
• Find the correct page
Once there, you can expand your name and your permissions should look like this:
Once those three steps are confirmed, you can connect your Instagram page to HeyOrca using the steps in this article!
Here is a video that shows how to connect an Instagram business page to HeyOrca!
Connecting an Instagram Personal Page
Instagram Personal pages can be connected to HeyOrca, but due to recent changes in Instagram’s API they can no longer process analytics. See this article for more details!
• Log into the correct Instagram account in another tab
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click Add Instagram
• Select “Profile”, not "Business Profile" on the next screen
• Follow the prompts
Here is a video that shows how to connect an Instagram personal page to HeyOrca.
Connecting a Facebook Business page
• Open a new tab and log into the correct Facebook account
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click “Add Facebook”
• Follow the prompts.
Here is an article that tells you more!
Note: You will need to have admin access to the Facebook page you are trying to connect
Connecting a Twitter page
• Open a new tab and log in to your Twitter account
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click “Add Twitter”
• Follow the prompts.
Connecting a LinkedIn personal page
• Open a new tab and log in to your LinkedIn account
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click “Add LinkedIn”
• Follow the prompts.
Connecting a LinkedIn business page or showcase page
• Open a new tab and log in to your LinkedIn account
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click “Add LinkedIn”
• Follow the prompts.
Note: You will need to have admin access to the LinkedIn page to connect it.
If you are admin, you will see “admin view” when you view the business page:
Connecting a Google My Business account
• Navigate to your calendar settings in HeyOrca
• Click “Add Google My Business”
• You will be redirected to Google to confirm which account you will be using with HeyOrca. You will be prompted to sign in to your account if you are not already signed in.
• Choose the location you wish to connect in HeyOrca
Here is an article that explains how to connect a GMB channel to HeyOrca!
Note: If Google considers your business a franchise/chain or it is an unverified location, you may not see it as an option to connect to HeyOrca. Here is more information about business eligibility and posting guidelines from Google.
Connecting a Placeholder channel
Some social channels are not supported for direct publishing, but you can still plan content in HeyOrca for them using a Placeholder channel!
To add a Placeholder channel to your calendar, click “Add a Demo” button in your calendar settings
Here is an article that explains how to use and connect demo channels.
Users
There are two main types of users in HeyOrca: Internal Members and External Members
Internal Members
Internal Members are anyone that is internal to your agency or team (i.e. social media managers, copywriters and account managers). They can be assigned to, or request to join, multiple calendars in your agency. All Internal members will receive an invitation to set up an account with HeyOrca, and will log in with an email and password. There are 4 internal roles that can be assigned to team members in each calendar:
Calendar Owners are able to create content, approve/reject content, and leave comments. They have access to the calendar, the media/content library, calendar settings, and analytics. They are also able to delete the calendar, any users and any social accounts in the calendar settings. They are able to re-authorize social accounts.
Internal Admins are able to create content, approve/reject content, and leave comments. They have access to the calendar, the media/content library, calendar settings, and analytics. They are able to remove users and social accounts in the calendar settings. They are able to re-authorize social accounts.
Internal Copywriters are able to create/edit content, and leave comments, but cannot approve/reject content to have it publish. They have access to the calendar, the libraries, and analytics. They do not have access to the calendar settings.
Internal Stakeholders are only able to approve/reject content, and leave comments. They have access to the calendar, the libraries, and analytics. They do not have access to the calendar settings.
Here is an article to explain the different internal role permissions!
External Members
External members are typically your team’s clients. They are confined to whichever calendar they are assigned to and do not have the ability to see or interact with your other client’s calendar. What your client sees in HeyOrca depends on what role you give to them. There are 3 client roles in HeyOrca: External Admin, External Copywriter, and External Stakeholder.
Here is an article to explain the different external role permissions.
Note: External stakeholders will not log in to HeyOrca and will not get an invitation to create an account. Instead they will be sent the content you want them to see using a shareable link. Click here for more information!
Adding users to your calendar
Here is an article that explains how to add internal and external members to your calendars.
Creating Posts
Uploading photos, gifs and videos to HeyOrca!
Here is an article with tips and channel specific requirements for uploading photos and gifs!
Here is an article with tips and channel specific requirements for uploading videos.
Publishing to Instagram
HeyOrca can publish single image, carousel, videos, reel and single image stories directly to your Instagram account!
To do so, you'll need to connect your Instagram account as a business profile (Business or Creator Instagram account that is paired to a Facebook page) within your HeyOrca calendar.
To learn more about setting up your account for direct publishing, click here!
You can also publish your content using our email notifications, or mobile app for times where you may want to add additional features not available via direct publishing such as trending audio or filters.
Here is an article that shows how to publish to Instagram using email notifications.
Here is an article that shows how to publish to Instagram using the mobile app!
Approvals
HeyOrca makes getting client approvals easier than ever! If you want a post to be approved before it can be published, you can set the post to “awaiting approval”, then you can select who needs to approve it. You can select one or multiple persons as approvers.
Internal users, External Admins, and External Copywriters will receive a notification in HeyOrca that they have a post to approve. External Stakeholders need to be sent a shareable link of posts to approve. If the reviewal process is more of a “nice-to-have” for your client, send posts over to them pre-approved.
Here is an article that explains how to assign post approval stages.
Here is an article that explains how to set up posts to be approved by multiple people.
Here is an article that explains how External Stakeholder approvals work.
Here is an article that explains how to configure internal approvals
Collaboration
HeyOrca makes collaborating with your team as easy as pie 🥧 You and your team can:
Work on posts together
Leave comments on posts that can be seen by only the internal team or by all calendar users
Tag your team and clients in posts to get their feedback
Assign posts to need approval from your team and clients
Tag posts for easy organization
Upload or text media to the media library
Plan content in the content library
Leave notes on the calendar for important events.
Here is an article that tells you more!
Analytics/Reporting
Social Media Analytics help you and your client understand how effectively your content is performing.
HeyOrca! currently offers unlimited Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Cross Channel*, Competitor Breakdown* and Date Range Comparison* Reports!
To learn about what metrics you can view in your reports, click here!
*Available on Pro Plans
Media and Content Library
Media Library
Every client is unique, so their media library should be too! Each calendar comes with a media library to store any media you want to use for content. Clients and team members can easily text images into the media library. You can also track if media has been previously used in content and organize your media with tags.
The media library is visible to all users, except External Stakeholders. External Stakeholders, Internal Copywriters, and External Copywriters cannot upload media in the media library, but they can text images into the media library.
The media library for each calendar is located on the left navigation bar within the calendar. When you click on the library icon, you will automatically be brought to the media library.
Inside the media library, you will have the option to toggle between the Media and Content Library
In the Media Library you will see all your uploaded media. Each asset has a description, tags, and used indicator. You can also:
Upload media
Create a new Canva design by clicking “New Design”
Filter by media type
Search for media
Edit media
HeyOrca Settings
Organization Settings
To access your Organization Settings, hover over your name in the bottom left of HeyOrca, then select Organization Settings.
In your Organization Settings you can:
View or add internal users
Assign account owners (only account owners can make other users an account owner)
Remove users from account (only account owners can delete other owners)
Edit which calendars a user is in and their role in the calendar (click on the gear icon next to their name)
Approve or reject pending requests to join calendars that you manage
Turn on or off the ability for users to see other calendars in the account that they are not members of (only account owners will see this option)
Note: Account owners will have a crown icon next to their name in the Organization Settings
Profile or Notification Settings
To access your Profile Settings, hover over your name in the bottom left of HeyOrca, then select Profile Settings
To access your Notification Settings, hover over your name in the bottom left of HeyOrca, then select Notification Settings
In your Profile or Notification settings you can:
Update your name
Update email
Update you timezone
Payment Settings
Note: Only account owners can access the payment settings
In the payment settings, you can:
See your past invoices
Update your credit card on file
Update your zip code (when you update your credit card it will allow you to update your zip code as well)
To access your Payment Settings, hover over your name in the bottom left of HeyOrca, then select Payment Settings
Here is an article that shows how to update your Payment Settings.
Reauthorization
Reauthorization is necessary in all 3rd party platforms, that includes HeyOrca and our competitors. All platforms may require re-authorization at times for various reasons. Basically, if they identify any behavior on the admin side of a page as risky (ie. an admin changes a password, an admin gets removed from a page, etc.) they will trigger a reauthorization as a security precaution to ensure you want to continue publishing content via HeyOrca (or any other service you may use!). These social channels also do regular roll-outs for security purposes. These roll-outs typically occur every 30 to 60 days.
Here is an article that shows how re-authorization works in HeyOrca as well as helps to troubleshoot any issues you may run into!.
Other Features
Instagram Grid View
For a visual platform like Instagram, an aesthetically pleasing profile is important. However, trying to communicate your brand vision for clients Instagram is hard.
We get it, that’s why we’re excited to introduce Instagram Grid Preview in HeyOrca!
As an agency, HeyOrca’s Instagram Grid Preview allows you to showcase how planned Instagram posts would look on your clients Instagram profile so that you can create a grid that is aesthetically pleasing and on brand.
Your clients will see exactly how your planned posts would look on their Instagram profile, allowing you to showcase your brand vision in a tangible way.
Finally, an Instagram Grid Preview that you can share with your clients! 🎉
Here is an article that shows how to use our Instagram Grid View feature.
HeyOrca's Photo Editor
HeyOrca has a built in photo editor to make creating content easier than ever🎉No more using third party photo editors, you can edit your photos directly in your post. You can also use the photo editor in the media and content libraries.
Using the photo editor you can:
Resize
Rotate
Adjust the colour
Use stickers
Apply filters
Add text
Here is an article about editing photos in HeyOrca.
HeyOrca's Canva Integration
If you are a Canva user, you already know how simple it is to create unique and stunning graphics for your social content! With the Canva button, you can use your previous designs and create new ones without having to leave your post! 🙌
Here is an article to show how to use our Canva integration.
Facebook Creator Studio Integration
Our integration allows you to plan content in HeyOrca, get approvals, and then push your content to Facebook Creator Studio for scheduling. You can use this feature to boost posts and access other features in Creator Studio.
Here is an article that shows how to use our Facebook Creator Studio Integration.
Copying posts
HeyOrca’s copying feature makes it easier than ever to copy your content from one social account to another (or many). You can also copy content from one client calendar to your other client calendars.
Here is an article that shows how to copy posts from one social account to another social account.
Here is an article that shows how to copy posts from one client calendar to other calendars.
Bulk Actions
Using Bulk Actions in HeyOrca, you can:
Set the stage (Draft, Awaiting Approval, Multi-Approval, Approved, Rejected) of multiple posts
Delete multiple posts
Copy multiple posts from one social account to another
Copy multiple posts from one calendar to another
Export content to an excel spreadsheet
Add a tag to multiple posts
Here is an article that shows how to use bulk actions.
Event Strips
Does your client have an important event coming up? 🗓 Use our event feature to mark the calendar. The event feature lets you easily see what important events are coming up, and plan your content accordingly. You can also set recurring events for your calendars.
Events strips aren't just limited to events or holidays, however. You can customize them to communicate your content strategy across to your team, to create bookings or details on classes help, or even use then as a hashtag base to keep that calendar's most used hash tags!
Here is an article that shows how to use event strips.
Here is an article that shows how to set up recurring events for your calendars.
Post Tags and Campaigns
At HeyOrca we understand that categorization and organization are critical in the planning process, which is why we have a feature to allow you to tag your posts.
Tagging your posts internally allow you and your team to be able to categorize your content, as well as filter the calendar by that post tag so that you can keep organized and track your posts.
Here is an article that shows how to use Post Tags.
Here is an article that shows how some of our Agency customers are using this feature.
Additionally, you can assign posts to be part of different campaigns. Campaigns act as a category, bucket, or grouping of related content with a specific end goal which can be filtered on in your calendar!
Here is an article that shows how to use Campaigns.
Filters
Filters allow you to stay organized, search for past posts, and much more. You can filter by social account for those posts, and approval stages, and by using campaigns and post tags.
Here is an article that shows how to filter posts in your calendars.
Have questions?
Reach Out to CustomerCare@HeyOrca.com Anytime! 👌