A hot content bot distributes articles that are still recent but do not require the cadence of a breaking-news alert. Give it a dedicated theme, a short freshness window, and a steady publishing rhythm.
1. Prepare a hot content theme#
In Intelligence, create or duplicate a theme dedicated to recent content.
- Select the section containing your publishable articles.
- Filter for articles published in the last 24 hours. If your volume is low, widen the period gradually.
- Exclude the tag reserved for breaking news, for example with
NOT tag:"breaking news", so the same article cannot be selected by both bots. - Sort results according to your editorial priority: publication date for freshness, views for performance, or a saved editorial order.
- Review about ten results manually. Every result should be safe to republish without correction.
For more precise filters, see How do I create a Boolean query?.
2. Create the bot from this theme#
In Bots, select Create a bot, choose From a theme, then Publish to your social accounts. Give the bot a clear name, select the brand, hot content theme, theme section, and only the relevant social accounts.
A practical starting point for a news feed is:
- active every day from 06:00 to 23:00 in the newsroom timezone;
- consult the theme every 50 to 70 minutes;
- select one article per run;
- publish immediately or distribute it within the next two hours.
These values are starting points, not universal rules. Run the bot more often when the theme contains many priority articles, or less often when the destination accounts are already busy.
3. Configure content and safeguards#
Use the title as the message source when your headlines already work on social media. Select the main image as the media source, then set a global daily limit and a per-account limit. Start with the review queue enabled so you can inspect the first results before switching to automatic publishing.
Pay particular attention to these settings:
- Maximum number of reposts: keep
0when each article should be used only once; - Daily limits: prevent an editorial spike from filling the entire social calendar;
- Excluded terms: remove sensitive topics, finished live coverage, or incompatible formats;
- Post type: favor links when driving readers to the article is the objective;
- PublishGuard: enable it after the brand rules have been configured and tested.
4. Test before enabling automation#
- Keep the bot in the review queue for at least one complete editorial cycle.
- Check freshness, image, copy, link, destination account, and duplicates.
- Compare the number of eligible articles with the selected daily limit.
- Switch to automatic publishing only when results are stable.
- After a few days, adjust the freshness window and frequency using the actual published volume.
If an expected article is not published, follow Why did my bot not publish this article?.