Publish Policies

Publish Policies

Publish policies are automated rules that validate your content before it goes live. They act as a safety net, catching issues like forbidden words, missing images, or posts that are too short - before they reach your audience.

Accessing publish policies

Open the More menu (☰) at the bottom of the left sidebar, click Settings, expand Admin, then open Publish Policies. From here you can create, edit, and delete policy rules.

Rule types

ScoutSocial supports a range of rule types to cover common content quality and compliance needs. Examples include:

• Banned words - Block posts containing specific words or phrases
• Minimum text length / Maximum text length - Set minimum or maximum character counts
• Max hashtags / Max emojis - Control how many hashtags or emojis a post can contain
• Allowed websites / Blocked websites - Allow or block links to specific domains
• Image required, Requires a call to action, and Required phrases - Require posts to include images, calls-to-action, or certain phrases

You will see the full list of available rule types when creating a new rule in the Settings panel.

Creating a policy rule

1. Click the + button in the Publish Policies panel.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Name - A descriptive name for the rule (e.g., "No competitor mentions")
   • Description - What the rule does and why
   • Rule Type - Select from the types above
   • Severity - Choose Error (blocks publishing) or Warning (flags but allows publishing)
   • Platform - Apply to All Platforms or a specific platform (LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube)
   • Configuration - Enter the values relevant to the rule type
3. Click Create to activate the rule (the button reads Update when you are editing an existing rule).

Severity levels

• Error - The post cannot be published until the violation is resolved. Use this for compliance-critical rules.
• Warning - The post is flagged with a warning but can still be published. Use this for style preferences that are not strict requirements.

Platform-specific rules

You can scope rules to a single platform. For example:

• Set Max Hashtags = 5 for LinkedIn but allow more on Instagram.
• Require a Min Text Length = 100 for LinkedIn articles but not for Twitter.
• Require Image Required for Instagram posts.

Rules set to "All Platforms" apply universally.

Editing and deleting rules

Each rule in the list can be edited (pencil icon ) or deleted (trash icon ). Changes take effect immediately for all future content validation.

How policies are enforced

When you attempt to publish or schedule a post, ScoutSocial runs all applicable policy rules against the content. If any error-severity rule fails, the post is blocked and you see the specific violation. Warning-severity violations are displayed but do not prevent publishing.