Daily AI Social Post Engine with Airtable, Claude, OpenAI, and Buffer

High-Level Summary

This workflow automates your daily social media content creation and scheduling. Every morning at 8 AM, it picks a fresh topic from an Airtable idea bank (avoiding recently used topics), generates a professional caption using Anthropic's Claude, creates a matching AI-generated image via OpenAI, hosts the image on ImgBB, and schedules the post to both LinkedIn and Instagram through Buffer. The built-in anti-repeat logic ensures you never publish the same topic twice within 14 days, keeping your feed diverse and engaging.

Node Breakdown

Below is every node in the workflow, its type, authentication method, and what its configured parameters do.

• Schedule Trigger Posts (n8n-nodes-base.scheduleTrigger) — No auth. Runs the workflow daily at 08:00 (workflow timezone). The triggerAtHour parameter sets the hour; you can change the interval to run more or less frequently.
• Get Post Ideas (n8n-nodes-base.airtable) — Airtable API (API Key or OAuth2). Searches the Airtable base for rows in the 'Topics' table where Active = TRUE. This returns your pool of available post topics.
• Check History Posts (n8n-nodes-base.airtable) — Airtable API (API Key or OAuth2). Fetches the last 14 published posts from the 'Posts' table, sorted by Date descending. The alwaysOutputData option is enabled so an empty table does not break the workflow.
• Filter and Choose Post Topic (n8n-nodes-base.code) — No auth. A JavaScript code node that compares the active topics against the last 14 published topics, filters out any that were used recently, and picks one at random. Outputs { topic, isValid }.
• Is Valid Post? (n8n-nodes-base.if) — No auth. Checks if isValid is true. If yes, the workflow continues to generate content; if false, it routes to the No Operation node and stops (no post is created).
• No Operation, do nothing (n8n-nodes-base.noOp) — No auth. A dead-end node that does nothing. Used when no fresh topic is available.
• Claude - Write Post Text (n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest) — Anthropic API (API Key via anthropicApi credential). Sends a POST request to https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages with a custom prompt that includes brand context, tone rules, and the chosen topic. The response contains the generated caption.
• Put Text in Variable (n8n-nodes-base.set) — No auth. Extracts the caption text from the Claude response and stores it in a variable postText for use in later nodes.
• ChatGPT - Generate Image (n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest) — OpenAI API (API Key via openAiApi credential). Sends a POST request to https://api.openai.com/v1/images/generations with a detailed prompt that includes the topic, the generated caption, brand colors, and style instructions. Returns a base64-encoded image.
• Base64 to PNG (n8n-nodes-base.convertToFile) — No auth. Converts the base64 image data from the OpenAI response into a binary PNG file with filename kijkes-image.png.
• Upload Post to ImgBB (n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest) — API Key (passed as query parameter key). Uploads the PNG file to ImgBB via multipart form-data. Returns a public image URL.
• Create LinkedIn Post (@bufferapp/n8n-nodes-buffer.buffer) — Buffer OAuth2. Creates a new post in Buffer for the LinkedIn channel using the caption and image URL. Requires organizationId and channelId to be filled in.
• Create Instagram Post (@bufferapp/n8n-nodes-buffer.buffer) — Buffer OAuth2. Creates a new post in Buffer for the Instagram channel using the same caption and image URL. Also requires organizationId and channelId.
• Log Posted Content (n8n-nodes-base.airtable) — Airtable API (API Key or OAuth2). Creates a new record in the 'Posts' table with the topic, caption, and image URL. This record is used by the anti-repeat logic on subsequent runs.
• Sticky Note1 (n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote) — No auth. Informational note describing the topic selection phase.
• Sticky Note2 (n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote) — No auth. Informational note describing the content generation phase.
• Sticky Note3 (n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote) — No auth. Informational note describing the publishing and logging phase.
• Sticky Note5 (n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote) — No auth. Detailed Airtable setup instructions.
• Sticky Note6 (n8n-nodes-base.stickyNote) — No auth. Overview and setup summary.

Setup Instructions

To use this workflow, you need the following accounts and credentials:

1. Airtable – Create a base with two tables:
   • Topics (fields: Topic (text), Active (checkbox)) – your idea bank. Only checked rows are considered.
   • Posts (fields: Date (created time), Topic (text), Post (long text), Image URL (URL)) – history of published posts. The Date field must be a Created time type for sorting to work.
   • Add at least 15 active topics to avoid the workflow stopping.
2. Anthropic – Sign up at console.anthropic.com and get an API key. Create an Anthropic API credential in n8n.
3. OpenAI – Sign up at platform.openai.com and get an API key. Create an OpenAI API credential in n8n.
4. ImgBB – Register at imgbb.com and get a free API key. Replace YOUR_IMGBB_API_KEY in the Upload Post to ImgBB node's query parameters.
5. Buffer – Connect your LinkedIn and Instagram channels to Buffer. Create a Buffer OAuth2 credential in n8n. Then find your organization ID and channel IDs (from Buffer's API or dashboard) and fill them in both Buffer nodes.

After setting up credentials, configure the Airtable nodes to point to your base and tables (use the resource locator to select them). Edit the Claude prompt in the Claude - Write Post Text node to match your brand voice, and adjust the image prompt in the ChatGPT - Generate Image node for your brand colors and style.

Use Cases and Variations

• Multi-platform scheduling – Add more Buffer nodes for Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest by duplicating the existing Buffer nodes and changing the channel ID.
• Different AI models – Swap Claude for OpenAI's GPT-4 or use a local LLM via HTTP Request. Similarly, replace OpenAI image generation with Stable Diffusion or DALL·E 3.
• Alternative image hosting – Replace ImgBB with AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Cloudinary by using their respective HTTP Request nodes.
• Weekly digest – Change the schedule trigger to run weekly instead of daily, and adjust the anti-repeat limit (e.g., 4 weeks).
• Video posts – Extend the workflow to generate short videos using AI video tools (e.g., RunwayML) and schedule them via Buffer's video support.
• Content repurposing – After posting, use the logged data to create a monthly report or feed into a content calendar.

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