Description
Storycast connects your WordPress site to Content Pulse, a distribution service for publishers. It reads what you publish and turns it into social posts that look like your brand, then publishes them for you and reports how they did.
What it does
- Strategies decide what goes out. Morning, midday and late bulletins, topic carousels, daily and weekly round-ups, latest articles, and breaking news. Each strategy chooses from your own articles, on the networks and at the times you set.
- Posts in your own brand. Pictures, carousels and short videos drawn in a look you choose and adjust, with your colours, fonts and logo. Videos can carry a voiceover written from the article.
- A caption for each network. Written for that network’s length and style, with a link back to your article.
- Thirteen networks. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, X, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Telegram and Google Business Profile, each connected on the network’s own sign-in page.
- Approve first, or not. Every post can wait in Approvals for a click, and can be edited there before it goes out. Editors can use Approvals without being administrators.
- Breaking news goes straight away. Tag a story as breaking and it posts at once.
- Performance on the Dashboard. Reach and engagement per post and per network, and an Activity feed of everything published.
Getting started
- Install and activate the plugin, then open Content Pulse in the admin menu.
- Press Connect to link this site to Content Pulse (see External services below).
- Follow the setup: your brand, a look, a plan, your strategies, and the social accounts to post to. Someone else can connect an account for you through a link you send them.
A Content Pulse subscription is needed to publish. Plans and prices are shown during setup.
External services
This plugin connects to Content Pulse (https://content-pulse.app), a service run by the plugin’s authors. It is needed for the plugin to work: Content Pulse makes the social posts and videos, publishes them, and collects their results.
Nothing is sent until an administrator presses Connect on the plugin’s first screen and agrees to the terms. After that, the plugin sends to https://app.content-pulse.app:
- When you press Connect: this site’s address, name, time zone and language, to create your account.
- When a post is published, updated or unpublished, and once after connecting for your existing posts: the post’s title, text, excerpt, address, pictures, categories and tags, and its author’s name, profile link and avatar address. Avatar addresses come from Gravatar and contain a scrambled (hashed) form of the author’s email address; the email address itself is not sent. Drafts and private posts are not sent.
- When you change categories, tags or authors: their names and addresses.
- When you use the plugin’s screens: your brand settings and logo, the look, the strategies and the social networks you choose, your edits to posts waiting for approval, and the email addresses for approval notices. When you first open Approvals (and again if it changes), the site administrator’s email address is sent so the summary of posts waiting for approval can reach them.
- When you choose a plan: your choice, plus the name and email address of the WordPress user starting checkout and a country taken from the site language, to fill in the payment page. Payment details are entered on the payment provider’s own page, not in WordPress.
Passwords, comments and your visitors’ data are never sent. Social accounts are connected on each network’s own sign-in page; this plugin never sees those passwords.
- Content Pulse Terms of Service: https://content-pulse.app/terms
- Content Pulse Privacy Policy: https://content-pulse.app/privacy-policy
Installation
- In WordPress, go to Plugins Add New, search for “Storycast”, then install and activate it. Or upload the plugin folder to
/wp-content/plugins/storycast-by-content-pulse/. - Open Content Pulse in the admin menu.
- Press Connect, then follow the setup.
FAQ
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Does Storycast send any data to an outside service?
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Yes, but only after you press Connect. See External services above for exactly what is sent, and when.
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Do I need a Content Pulse account?
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Pressing Connect creates one for this site. Publishing needs a paid plan, chosen during setup.
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Yes. On the Channels page, “Copy link for a colleague” makes a link that works for seven days. Whoever manages the account opens it and signs in to the network. They do not need a WordPress login.
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Can editors use it?
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Yes. Anyone who can edit others’ posts can use Approvals and see Performance. Settings stay with administrators.
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What happens if I delete the plugin?
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Its settings, log and background jobs are removed from WordPress. Your Content Pulse account and published posts are not deleted; contact us to close the account.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Storycast by content-pulse.app – Newsroom Content Distribution Engine” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.3.0
- Changed: a reorganised code structure, with new internal names throughout. Nothing changes in how you use it.
- Changed: the main plugin file is now storycast-by-content-pulse.php. After updating, WordPress may ask you to activate the plugin once.
1.2.9
- Added: an extra account can be connected by a colleague. Choose “Send a link to a colleague” when adding it, or “Copy link for a colleague” on an account that is not connected yet. The link works for 7 days and only connects that one account.
- Changed: the Connect screen and External services now list everything that is sent: the checkout name, email and country, the site administrator’s email for approval notices, and that avatar addresses contain a hashed email.
1.2.8
- Changed: removing or disconnecting a linked account shows “Removing…” until it is done, instead of a few silent seconds.
1.2.7
- Fixed: when connecting or adding an account fails, the page now explains why instead of showing the host’s “Bad gateway” page.
1.2.6
- Fixed: a strategy for an extra account (a second page on the same network) kept that account when saved. It was saved onto the network’s main account instead, and counted against that account’s daily post limit.
1.2.5
- Changed: only the slow Approvals edits (swapping or removing a story, changing a picture, rewriting a caption) ask the host for more time; a plain caption edit does not.
- Fixed: the API password is stored exactly as entered instead of being run through a text filter that could change it.
1.2.4
- Changed: the plugin is now called Storycast by content-pulse.app (slug storycast-by-content-pulse).
- Changed: styles and scripts load as proper files; the setup notice shows only on the Plugins screen and Dashboard and can be dismissed.
- Security: stricter checking of every request and of uploaded cover images; all output is escaped.
1.2.3
- Changed: adding another account is pay as you add. Press “+ Add another account”, confirm the $15 a month, and sign in: no buying in Billing first. Removing an extra account takes it off your next bill.
- Changed: each network card lists its Linked accounts by their own page names; four cards to a row.
- Changed: Plan & Billing lists each extra account by name and every upcoming bill by date, and the charge shown before adding an extra is the real one (the first extra is billed in full on its own date).
1.2.2
- Added: a second account on the same network, such as another Facebook page. Press “+ Add another account” on a connected network, name it, then connect it on its own card. Each extra account has its own strategies and calendar. Extra accounts are $15 a month each, bought in Billing.
1.2.1
- Added: a copy of the live site sends nothing. A staging or development site made by copying the live database (and every non-production WordPress VIP environment) is paused, so it can never post to your real social accounts. A site that really moved to a new address is resumed with one click.
- Changed: works when the plugin is loaded in code (WordPress VIP): settings are created on first use, and a “Set it up” notice replaces the redirect that only runs on activation.
- Changed: saving a post waits at most 3 seconds on Content Pulse; anything slower is retried in the background.
- Changed: pictures stored off the server (for example on a CDN or WordPress VIP’s file service) are no longer downloaded when a post is saved.
1.2.0
- Added: the first screen asks before connecting. Nothing is sent to Content Pulse until an administrator presses Connect and agrees to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Sites already connected are not asked again.
- Changed: ready for the WordPress.org plugin directory. Internal names now start with
cpconn_and the text domain isstorycast-by-content-pulse. Settings, onboarding progress and the connection carry over on their own when you update. - Changed: the admin page address is now
admin.php?page=content-pulse. Old links still work. - Changed: the log is kept in the WordPress database instead of a file in wp-content.
- Changed: the plugin’s scripts are loaded through WordPress instead of being written into the page.
- Changed: works from WordPress 6.4 and PHP 8.2.