Frequently Asked Questions

So how does it work?

• Outfy picks up a handful of random products and schedules it for the next day.
• The scheduled list is prepared everyday so that your latest products stay on priority.
• The products are shared only on networks you choose to.
• Once all your products get shared at least once, they are auto rotated.
• Outfy plans your daily schedule in the best possible way which befits without breaking the norm of your social networks.
• Your old inventory gets the chance to move generating your more sales.
• You can always view your next day schedule via Planner.

1. Product automation - Simple autopilot task which picks up your product images and schedules them for posting on your preferred networks. The images are sent to the networks in their original form without any modification.
2. COLLAGE automation - An enhanced version of Autopilot which converts your product images into a stunning Collage. The best matching template is intelligently chosen. In addition you have the provision to add your store logo to the collage, making it more branded and meaningful.
3. GIF automation - Completely enhanced version of Autopilot which transforms your product images into a riveting animated GIF. All of your products images are rotated in sequence creating an eye pleasing experience. Add your store logo to give a touch of branding.
4. VIDEO automation - A new level of Automation which gives life to your product images and produces a captivating Video. Choose from a wide range of Video templates with soothing background music. Keep your users engaged forever.

Note: Collage/GIF automation is only supported on 4 networks - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. And Video automation is supported on 5 networks - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube.

Outfy highly recommends you to go for Collage/GIF/Video automation of your products instead of the stale and simple product posting.

How does it work?

• Based on your desired settings, Outfy picks up a handful of blog posts and schedules it for the next day.
• The scheduled list is prepared everyday so that your latest blog posts stay on priority.
• The blog posts are shared only on networks you choose to.
• Once all your blog posts get shared at least once, they can be chose to be auto rotated.
• Outfy plans your daily schedule in the best possible way which befits without breaking the norm of your social networks.

Note: Blog SmartQ is only supported on 4 networks - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

If you plan to share creative content like Collage, Animated GIFs, Videos and automate them all at a go, then it’s a YES. You should definitely use SmartQ to automate your daily postings. It is more powerful than the regular Autopilot. Networks will love it. Your customers will love it.

Some of the networks do not allow or support custom content. So SmartQ is unable to post all types of contents for all networks. Below is the complete list of what is allowed and what not on all supported networks:

• Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram - all allowed(Product, Collage, GIF, Video)
• Youtube - only Video allowed
• Kit - only product allowed

1) Instagram Business account

Right now, Instagram’s API only allows posting for business accounts. That means you can’t have a Creator or Personal account and use this feature.

If you don’t have a Business account, you can get one here - https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/create-an-instagram-business-profile. It’s FREE.

2) Instagram should be connected with Facebook

Please make sure your Instagram account is connected to your Facebook account. If it is not, here are the steps to do it - https://www.facebook.com/business/help/898752960195806

NOTE: You should be an owner/admin of the Facebook Page which is linked to the Instagram Business Profile to enable direct publishing through this method.

High chances are that you are trying to connect an Instagram account which is not a Business profile. Outfy works only with Instagram Business Account/profile. If you don’t have a Business account, you can get one from here - https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/create-an-instagram-business-profile . It’s FREE.

Instagram highly recommends to use Business profiles to market your business and increase brand awareness through engagement. With an Instagram business profile, businesses can promote their products and services to a global audience of people who are most interested in what they do. Business accounts helps to reach more people, stay connected with them and boost sales.

A business profile also offers more marketing tools and services than the personal account:

• Instagram analytics for reach, impressions and follower demographics
• The ability to promote posts and run Instagram ads
• Multiple contact options for your business, including phone number, email address and physical address
• Appointment booking integration

Instagram imposes a few limitations for direct posting:

• Account type: Only Instagram Business accounts are supported for now.
• Number of posts: Each Instagram Business account will be limited to 25 API-published posts within a 24-hour moving period.
• Content type: Single-image posts, Single-video posts (Stories, Shopping tags, Branded content tags, Filters and Multi-image posts are not supported).
• Hashtags: up to 30 hashtags per post are allowed.
• Asset aspect ratio: assets within the 4:5 to 1.91:1 range are supported. Outfy auto handles it for you.

1. Open a new browser tab in Incognito or Private mode. Here's how to do for your favorite browser:
• Chrome - https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464?hl=en&ref_topic=7437824
• Safari - https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/safari/browse-in-private-ibrw1069/mac
• Internet Explorer - https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4026200/microsoft-edge-browse-inprivate
• Firefox - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-use-firefox-without-history#w_how-do-i-open-a-new-private-window
2. Open pinterest.com and go to your Settings page (https://pinterest.com/settings)
3. Navigate to Apps section (choose from left menu options)
4. Look out for Outfy app and if you see it, click "Revoke Access"
5. Now completely log out of your Pinterest account
6. Login to your Outfy account and go to Networks page (https://www.outfy.com/networks/index)
7. Try to connect your Pinterest account again with valid credentials

Note: You need to perform all of the steps above in Incognito or Private mode of browser.

Still no luck? Pinterest connect works best on Chrome browser. If you are using IE/Safari/Mozilla, try switching to Chrome. This is just one time process and you can always go back to your Favorite browser later.

a) Post as ‘Link’

• Facebook gets your product image and ignores image selected by you on Outfy
• Clicking on the post/image takes users to your product page

b) Post as ‘Image’

• Facebook accepts and displays the image selected by you
• Image opens in overlay. Product link is present in the caption

Best Solution recommended by our experts:

• Choose the option to "post as an image" for Facebook from the networks tab - https://www.outfy.com/networks/index
• This will post the image directly from your online store to Facebook.
• Just ensure that you maintain a time interval of minimum 4hrs between two consecutive posts on Facebook, as this is a stipulation again by Facebook and is hard-coded in Outfy posts for your convenience and reducing all risks to violation.

• This will post the links from your online store to Facebook.
• This ensures that atleast 3 images get posted instead of one.

But this works only if your store has multiple images for a single product. So, if your store doesn’t have multiple images for a product, the probability of distortion of the available image may still not be ruled out completely.

The recent Twitter Rules are out and here’s how it affects all Outfy users:

a) Posting duplicative or substantially similar content — both on one account and across multiple accounts is NO more allowed

This essentially means:

• You won’t be able to repeat the same post - Product, Collage, GIF, Video etc.
• Store/Product/Generic promotions have been disabled right now for Twitter because the same post tends to be repeated. Outfy will notify all users when this feature is back with all the compliant related changes.

b) Maximum 2 hashtags are now allowed in tweets

A limit of 2 hashtags per tweet has been imposed. So your Twitter posts populated via Planner or Dashboard or Autopilot will only populate 2 hashtags for each tweet. The Post Template for twitter also reflects the same limiting it to 2 only. In return this will give more priority and visibility to the actual message instead of only hashtags.

Twitter has released these new guidelines to prevent people from misusing Twitter to artificially amplify a message. This change should make Twitter network a lot more useful for everyone in the long run – less spammy and fewer bots are pretty good things to work towards. So it is important for Outfy and its users to comply to the recommended rules, failing to which will result in accounts being banned or locked.

Note: This ONLY affects Twitter posts, the rest of the networks will continue to work as usual.

This is a known issue with Instagram platform and honestly we have no idea as to when they are going to fix it. All non-English users who have Instagram accounts in their local language face issues while associating their account to 3rd party apps.

The only workaround is by temporarily changing the Browser language to English, connect Instagram account and then revert browser to original language. Here are the complete steps:

1. Change browser language to English. Here’s how to do for various browser types - https://www.wikihow.com/Change-Your-Browser's-Language
2. Go to Oufy networks page and connect your Instagram account by entering your credentials
3. Once successfully connected, set the browser language back to original (same as step #1 above)

In case you still face issues while connecting, please try using other browsers instead of your default one

If you receive an error while connecting your Etsy shop, this could be due to some intermittent issue from Etsy’s end. Kindly follow the below steps to rectify this:

1. Open Etsy admin panel or shop manager section
2. Look out for Outfy app in your Integrations >> Manage section
3. Disconnect Outfy app if you see it listed
4. Try to connect Outfy app again preferably In an incognito or private browser window

Most of the networks allow you to share multiple images in a single post. With Outfy, there are 2 ways you can achieve this:

a) Manual - On the product share page, select those images you wish to post. You may drag and reorder the images to manage the sequence of display.

b) Automation - If you wish to have your automated posts shared with multiple images, update your settings on the Network page for each connected network. Navigate to each network tab and activate the option “Share multiple images”.

As of now, these many num of images are allowed in a post:

1. Facebook - max 5 images
2. Twitter - max 4 images
3. Pinterest - max 4 images
4. Instagram - max 10 images

Outfy enables you to create 3 types of Ads which are the best and top performing ones in the current industry:

• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Ads
• Google Ads (coming up next)

Unable to find where to create Ads? Let us know here

Facebook advertising or FB ads in some words is paying to place promotions or product offers in the news feed of a specific, targeted audience on Facebook. Facebook along with Instagram has the biggest user base with over 2 billion monthly active users and so it is the platform which gets newcomers started quickly or accelerates businesses of existing players.

Know more about Facebook ads

A Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that consists of a code that you can put on your website. The pixel fires to track site visitors. This data allows you to retarget those users with Facebook ads in the future, as well as see what they're doing on your site when they return.

• If your site is hosted on website platforms like BigCommerce, Ecwid by Lightspeed, Shopify then refer to this link.
• If not then refer to this link.

If you encounter an error while:

1. Connecting provider(Facebook/Google) - please give all the permissions which have been asked.
2. Creating an ad:
   • It means your account doesn’t have permission to create an ad.
   • You will have to explicitly request the permissions from the owner of the Ad Account.
   • Once done, refresh your account details.

This means card details are missing in your Ad account. Please follow the below steps to fix this:

• Go to your Ads manager account.
• Go to Settings => Payment settings.
• Add/Update your payment related details.
• Refresh your account details on Outfy.

If you have updated details on your Facebook Ad account like account name, time zone, access permissions, payment details etc. you will need to get those changes reflected on Outfy as well so that your ads run smoothly. To refresh your account details on Outfy, navigate here

Ad Insights are updated once a day at midnight PST. For e.g if your ad has started at 12:15 am PST then its first day insights will be received on the next day at 12:00 am PST.

The ad is considered to be running only when the ad status is either ACTIVE or PREAPPROVED. Below is the complete list which explains all statuses:

• ACTIVE: Ad is successfully running.
• PAUSED: Ad is paused.
• DELETED: Ad is deleted.
• PENDING REVIEW: Ad review is pending.
• DISAPPROVED: Ad is disapproved, this generally happens when an ad doesn’t comply with Facebook Advertising Policies.
• PREAPPROVED: As you increase your spending and your account has a good reputation, Facebook is more likely to pre-approve your ads and then double-check them once they’re live.
• PENDING BILLING INFO: Ad billing is pending.
• CAMPAIGN PAUSED: Ad Campaign is paused.
• ARCHIVED: Ad is archived.
• ADSET PAUSED: Adset is paused.
• IN PROCESS: Ad review is in process.
• ACCOUNT ERROR: It is due to your payment method which is not properly set. Try to clear the due amount on Facebook and refresh your campaign list page. it will work.

Make sure that the pop-up window is enabled on your web browser.

Your Ad may not be displayed on all platforms due to media specification requirements.

Facebook recommended media specifications for dimensions:

• Video: 1:1 or 4:5
• Image: 1:1

Instagram recommended media specifications for dimensions:

• Instagram stream: 1:1
• Instagram story: 1:1 or 9:16

To create a Business Manager:

• Go to business.facebook.com/overview
• Click CREATE ACCOUNT
• Enter a name for your business, your name, work email address and click Next
• Enter your business details and click Submit

For more information, check out this official Facebook link.

Want to grant someone access to your Business Manager account. Please refer the instructions here

Outfy provides an interactive and easy way to creating engaging social media content other than the normal product sharing. You can create and share:

• Collage from images of a single or multiple products
• Animated GIFs of your product images
• Videos from images of a single or multiple products
• Link of Blog or any interesting and informative article
• Upload Custom Image from your desktop or mobile
• Existing Photos from Outfy gallery

Gone are the days of sharing plain & stale images. High quality Video sharing is the new drift in current Social Media world. Outfy helps you creating captivate quality videos from your product images in the most intriguing way:

1. Choose a product to create a video
2. Choose a template from our top creations
3. View sample or checkout a quick preview of your video to see how it looks
4. Your video is ready to be shared on your social networks

Share your dazzling video and awe your followers.

*All videos are accompanied with royalty free and legal music to be used commercially

Yes the associated music with the videos are absolutely free to use. These music files have been taken from http://www.freesfx.co.uk which are officially approved to be used. To know more about it, please visit their faq - https://www.freesfx.co.uk/faq.aspx

Videos without music tend to be flat and chances are that they could go unnoticed. So it's a wise recommendation from our experts that videos work best when loaded with music as they have a tendency to attract and engage users.

Yes, you are free to opt out the music from your videos. Toggle and turn OFF the Music button located on top right of Video Creation page, your videos will be created without any background music.

Videos are auto cropped by Instagram if they don't fall within their recommended dimensions. To avoid this and share the video in its original form, please follow the below instructions:

1. When Instagram opens up from Outfy, below is how the sharing screen looks like where Video is loaded. You will notice that video is partially cut from sides.
   
2. Locate a format button (with 2 tilted arrows in a grey circle) on left hand side. Use it to change the mode from square size to Full/Original size video as shown below.
   
3. Go ahead and post the video with no more cropping.

Pinterest does not allow direct video uploads through 3rd party tools like Outfy. You can upload Videos only through their web portal. Outfy has come up with a smart workaround for this where Youtube is used as a medium for finally posting a video on Pinterest.

The whole process takes place in 2 simple steps:

1. Your video is first uploaded to Youtube (once you connect it to Outfy).
2. Youtube returns a link to a successful post. This link is further used to create a video pin on Pinterest

This means the video is internally rendered from your youtube account. Deletion of the youtube video will result in non-functional of the video pin.

Downside - the only downside of this workaround process is that your video is posted on youtube too even if you do not intend to. On the other hand, it gives you a great opportunity to promote your store on youtube. Youtube is the most widely used video platform.

Credits - as the video is posted on 2 networks simultaneously, you are charged 50 credits in total.

Pinterest does not provide direct apis/services to third party apps for video posting. You can only upload videos directly from your Pinterest account if you wish to.

So how do you upload the engaging videos created on Outfy ? Download them first and then upload manually. Sounds boring & cumbersome if you plan to do this daily.

Outfy has come up with a neat workaround for this. Now you will be able to post videos directly and automatically on Pinterest from Outfy through YouTube. The video is first uploaded on your YouTube channel (you need to create one if you don’t have one). This video is then used to create a Pin on your Pinterest account. Your videos now start appearing on Pinterest and you get the increased traction on your Pinterest account.

Kindly follow the below steps to start posting videos on Pinterest:

1. Go to Networks
2. Connect your YouTube account
3. Connect Pinterest account (if not already)
4. Head back to Outfy video creator and start posting videos on Pinterest.

Note - as this is a workaround and Youtube is used as a medium, your videos are always posted on YouTube first. Please do not remove them as they are directly linked to your pins

This is a default restriction imposed by Chrome and other browsers when a third party app is initialised to open on Outfy. To use Canva on Outfy, we suggest to use it only in a normal browser mode.

If you still wish to work in a private mode, then you need to do the following:

Under Chrome's Settings > Privacy > Content settings, uncheck the cookie setting set to "Block sites from setting any data"

Outfy’s connection to social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc..grants us permission to publish posts. If your connection expires, you’ll need to re-connect it so you can continue using Outfy.

Connection ideally expires if you update security details, such as the email or password for the Facebook Admin account you had connected to Outfy. Access can also be removed by Facebook(or other networks) for other security reasons which will also require reconnection.

In all the above cases, you simply need to disconnect your existing account and re-connect. Please make sure you give the required access to the Outfy app to ensure smooth functioning.

• If you have changed any of your account information on a particular network and not updated it with Outfy, the sharing will fail.
• Sometimes the internet gods just don’t favor us and there is a network failure.
• The network in question may have changed something on their site causing our system to show an error.
• At times, it is our own tech monkeys to blame. Though we try really hard to ensure they are fed well and share your products without any failure.