Edgar's Categories

Learn how to change your category names, shuffle your content, create new categories, and add/remove from the schedule's Random time slots

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Written by Edgar
Updated over a week ago

Welcome to your Content Categories page.

Edgar's categories are what sets him apart. They keep your content organized and make it easy for you to automate the right type of content at the right time, without having to schedule each post by hand. 

You can create new categories, edit existing categories, add categories into the 'Random' posting rotation, or shuffle a category's content.

Learn more about categories below:


Default Categories

When you join Edgar, we provide you with a few default categories to get you started.

The General Category

General is a catch-all sort of category. If you're not sure where you should put a post, stick it in General. This can include posts from a random website you came across while surfing, a meme or image you want to share that doesn't quite fit in another category, etc.

The General category is included in Random, which means content in this category will be used for Random time slots on your schedule. This is Edgar's main default category and cannot be edited or deleted.

My Blog Posts

Use this category to store all your blog posts or other content from your website. You can even import your posts automatically with Edgar's Feeds so your Library is always up to date with your latest content.

Don't have a blog? No worries! This category can be edited or deleted.

Promotions & Specials

Having a sale? Want to promote your class or webinar? Just wanna link people on Facebook to your X account so they can follow you? Use the Promotional category to store all your self promoting posts...don't worry, these aren't taboo. How else would your followers find out that you're co-hosting an amazing X Chat next Tuesday?

Promote away! Just be sure to mix those promos in with a good assortment of other types of posts using Edgar's schedule to prevent promo fatigue.

This category can be edited or deleted.

Recommended Reads

This category is for sharing other people's content. And we highly recommend that you do this! The best social strategies aren't just about sharing your content. They're about publishing a mix of quality content from various sources so that your feeds stay fresh and provide value to your followers, which encourages them to engage more.

Use Recommended Reads to share posts from other leaders in your industry, educational resources on topics relevant to your business, and anything you think your followers would benefit from seeing. This could be blog posts from industry blogs, podcasts, book recommendations, news, or anything else you'd like to share.

This category can be edited or deleted.

Add New Category

Click the “Add New Category” button to create a new category.

This will open the 'Add Category' window, where you can type your category name, and select whether or not Edgar will include the category in Random time slots:

The more specific your categories, the more control you have over what types of updates get published at which times.

Delete Category

Caution: Deleting a category will also delete any posts in that category in your library as well as remove all of the time slots for that category from your schedule. This cannot be undone, so be extra careful!

Go to your Categories page and click on the 'X' button on the category you want to delete. The General category is the only category that can't be deleted.

Edit Category

On the categories page, click on the pencil icon on the category you'd like to edit. The only category that cannot be edited is the General category.

Change the category name and check or uncheck the box that includes the category in Random time slots

Shuffle Category

By default, Edgar publishes content in a last in, first out order so that your newest and freshest content always gets published first.  However, if you decide you don't want this order, click the Shuffle button on any category on the Categories page.  

Clicking Shuffle will mix up the content in that category into a new, random order for publishing.  Learn more about Shuffle.

Random Timeslots

Time slots in your schedule can be set to 'Random', which means that time slot will pick posts randomly from your Edgar Library. 

You can exclude categories from Random to prevent random time slots from publishing those posts. For example, you may not want a Thanksgiving category to be published in April by your random time slots.  

To exclude an entire category from being queued for Random time slots, edit the category on the Categories page then uncheck the box next to "Included when selecting random content to post."  Click Save.

What does it mean to include a category in random?

When you create or edit a category on the Categories page, you will see a check box that includes the category when selecting random content.

This option refers to Random time slots on your Edgar Schedule. If a category is included in random, then Random time slots will be allowed to pull posts from that category to publish for those time slots. If a category is excluded from random by unchecking that box, then Random time slots are not allowed to access that category's posts.

Why would I want to exclude a category from random?

Not all content is suitable for publishing at random times. If you have seasonal or event specific categories that you don't want to be published at random throughout the year, uncheck this box to exclude the category from random.

Stop a Category from Publishing

If you don't want to pause your entire queue using the Pause button, there are two ways to tell Edgar to stop sending posts from a single category.

First, you can remove the time slots for that category from your schedule. When you're ready to start publishing from that category again, add the time slots back in.

Or, if you don't want to edit the schedule to remove the time slots for this category, use our Bulk Edit feature to move the posts to a holding category:

  1. Add a new category on the Categories page called Holding (or whatever else you'd like to name it). IMPORTANT: Be sure to uncheck the box that includes this category in random before you save it.

  2. Go to Bulk Edit. Use the Category drop down filter at the left to choose the category the content is currently located in. If you do not use this filter, your changes will affect your entire library. Be sure to filter to just one category!

  3. Once you have filtered to the category where the content is currently located, select all of the content in that category with the check boxes and choose Edit Category from the Actions drop down menu.

  4. Select your holding category and click Apply.

  5. When you're ready to publish this content again, repeat steps 2-4 above to move the posts from the Holding category back to the original category.


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