Social media managers charge between $800 and $2,000 per month.
Their job — broken down to its core — is three things. Write platform-specific captions. Adapt the content for each audience. Make sure it goes out on schedule.
That is it. That is the whole job.
I built an automation that does all three. It costs $29 a month. It runs while I sleep. And it took one afternoon to set up.
Here is how it works.
The Stack
Three tools. Nothing exotic.
Google Sheets — the content calendar. Every piece of content that goes out starts as a row in a spreadsheet. Video title, topic, series, key points, affiliate mention, and a status column.
Make.com — the automation backbone. When the status column changes to Ready, Make.com fires. It reads the row, sends the data to Claude, receives the captions back, and routes them to the right places.
Claude API — the writer. Make.com sends the video details and Claude returns four platform-specific captions — LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and Instagram — all formatted differently, all in the brand voice I built into the system prompt.
That is the entire stack. One spreadsheet. One automation platform. One AI.
The Content Calendar
The Google Sheets content calendar has eleven columns:
Column A — Video Title Column B — Topic and Hook Column C — Series Column D — Target Platforms Column E — Key Points (three to five bullet points about the content) Column F — Affiliate to mention Column G — Status (the trigger column) Columns H through K — Output columns where Claude's captions land
The Status column is the on switch. Every row starts as Draft. When the content is ready to go out, I change Status to Ready. Make.com wakes up within fifteen minutes and the automation fires.
Every key point, every video detail, every affiliate instruction goes in one row — not spread across multiple cells. Everything in the same row, same status, same trigger.
How the Make.com Scenario Works
The scenario has four nodes.
Node 1 — Google Sheets: Watch Rows Make.com monitors the content calendar. The moment Status changes to Ready, it reads that row and passes all the column data downstream.
Node 2 — HTTP: Claude API Call Make.com sends the row data to the Claude API at https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages
The system prompt contains the full brand voice — who the channel is, who the audience is, what tone to write in, and exactly how each platform's caption should be formatted. Claude receives the video title, topic, series, key points, and affiliate instruction and returns four captions, each separated by a unique delimiter so Make.com can split them cleanly.
Node 3 — Router The scenario branches into two routes. The first route updates the Google Sheets row with all four captions written into columns H through K and changes the Status to Posted. The second route handles direct platform posting.
Node 4 — Platform Posting LinkedIn posts automatically via Make.com's LinkedIn connector. X posts automatically via Make.com's X connector. TikTok and Instagram captions land in the spreadsheet ready to copy — direct API posting for those platforms has restrictions, so the copy-paste-from-Sheets workflow is cleaner and more reliable.
The whole scenario runs in under thirty seconds from trigger to post.
The System Prompt — This Is the Most Important Part
The Claude system prompt in Node 2 is what makes this work. It is your brand voice in written form.
Here is the version I use for replacewithclaude — adapt it for your own brand:
You are the social media manager for replacewithclaude, a YouTube channel
that teaches solopreneurs and business owners how to replace expensive
overhead with Claude AI.
Brand voice: Direct, no-fluff, practical, confident. Never condescending.
Tagline: Stop hiring. Start replacing.
Audience: Solopreneurs and business owners — beginners to advanced.
When given a video topic and key points, write FOUR posts:
1. LinkedIn post (professional tone, outcome-first, 150-200 words,
end with a question, 3 hashtags max)
2. X/Twitter post (punchy, under 280 characters, strong hook,
include a number or stat if available)
3. TikTok caption (casual, energetic, 3-5 lines, end with
Link in bio, 8-10 hashtags)
4. Instagram caption (conversational, 4-6 lines,
10-15 hashtags, end with a question)
Separate each post with exactly: |||NEXT|||
Return in this exact order:
LinkedIn post |||NEXT||| X post |||NEXT||| TikTok caption |||NEXT|||
Instagram caption
No labels. No JSON. No markdown. Just the four posts
separated by |||NEXT|||The more specific this prompt is — your exact tone, your audience's vocabulary, your series names, your affiliate rules — the more Claude sounds like you rather than a generic AI.
This prompt is the equivalent of a brand guidelines document, a style guide, and a platform strategy all in one. Update it as your brand evolves. Every update improves every future post automatically.
What the Output Actually Looks Like
After the scenario runs, four things happen:
The Google Sheets row gets four captions written into columns H through K. The Status column updates from Ready to Posted. A LinkedIn post appears on the profile automatically. An X tweet posts automatically.
The TikTok and Instagram captions sit in the spreadsheet ready to copy. Both take thirty seconds to paste and post manually — the caption is written, formatted, and hashtagged. The only step is the paste.
The Monday Morning Workflow
This is how the system runs week to week.
Every Monday I open the content calendar. I fill in one row for every piece of content going out that week — videos, blog posts, announcements, product launches. Status stays as Draft for everything.
When a piece of content is ready to promote, I change the Status to Ready. Make.com picks it up within fifteen minutes. Claude writes the captions. Posts go out.
My total active time per piece of content: two to three minutes to fill in the row. Everything after that is automated.
Compare that to what a social media manager charges for the same output. Eight hundred to two thousand dollars a month. This system runs for nine dollars a month on Make.com's basic plan plus twenty dollars for Claude Pro.
Twenty-nine dollars a month. No manager. No briefing calls. No revisions. No waiting for someone else's schedule.
The Stack This Video Builds On
If you have followed the channel over the last few weeks, this video connects three previous builds into one working system.
V12 — How I Run My Entire Business With Claude Showed the full business stack and how Claude replaces each function. Social media was mentioned as a piece of the puzzle.
V15 — Claude MCP Setup Connected Claude to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. The same connector logic applies here — Make.com as the trigger layer, Claude API as the intelligence layer.
V16 — This build Takes the automation framework from V12, the API connection knowledge from V15, and puts both together to replace a specific expensive business function end to end.
Each video in the catalog builds on the last. If you are new here, watch V12 and V15 before this one — the context makes the build significantly easier to follow.
How to Adapt This for Any Business
The content calendar and Claude system prompt can be adapted for any business that publishes content regularly.
Coaches and consultants — swap the video-focused fields for session topics, client insights, and speaking engagements. The four-platform output stays the same.
E-commerce brands — product launches, sale announcements, customer stories. Set the affiliate field to the product SKU.
Freelancers and agencies — client work announcements, case study posts, thought leadership. The system prompt reflects the agency tone.
The structure does not change. The spreadsheet columns stay the same. The Make.com scenario runs identically. Only the system prompt and the content calendar rows are brand-specific.
Watch the Full Build Video
The full automation is built live on camera — every node in Make.com, the Claude system prompt, the router setup, and the live test run showing real captions writing into the spreadsheet and posting to LinkedIn in real time.
📺 Watch here: https://youtu.be/f10NrkugG8s
Grab the Free Claude Business Stack PDF
Includes the full Claude system prompt from this video, the Make.com scenario structure, and the content calendar column setup — all copy-paste ready.
📥 Free download: https://replacewithclaude.beehiiv.com/
Build This With Me on Skool
Every workflow I build — including this one — is posted in the community with templates, live build sessions, and direct access. Founding member pricing is still open.
🏘️ Join here: skool.com/signup?ref=bd14267a4a8540868d97a596bc032542
The Tools
Make.com (automation backbone) → make.com/en/register?pc=ilovemake94
Claude API (via Claude Pro, $20/month) → console.anthropic.com
Google Sheets (free) → sheets.google.com
Joe | replacewithclaude Stop hiring. Start replacing.
Affiliate disclosure: Make.com and Skool links above are affiliate links. I earn a commission if you sign up — at no cost to you.