Turn every new YouTube upload into a branded image post on social
Watch a YouTube channel for new uploads, have Gemini write a short description and announcement post, generate a branded graphic with ContentDrips, upload it to SocialBu, and publish it across your connected accounts — with Discord alerts on success or failure.
What this looks like
One step on screen at a time. Read it, do it, tap Next.
Turn every new YouTube upload into a branded image post on social
Step 1 of 22
Subscribe to YouTube Notifications
Add a Manual Trigger node named "When clicking 'Execute workflow'" and a Schedule Trigger node named "Trigger every 5 days", both feeding an HTTP Request node named "Subscribe to YouTube Not
Checkpoint
A successful call re-establishes the push subscription for another lease period.
Before you begin
Tick these off as you sort them. Stopping halfway to create an account is how a fifteen-minute build becomes an hour.
0 of 10 ready
Ticks are saved on this device, so you can come back to them.
- Have ready
The workflow polls this channel's public RSS feed, so you only need the channel ID, not API access to YouTube itself.
- API key
Used to turn a raw video title and description into a short summary and a casual announcement post.
Google AI Studio - Account
ContentDrips generates the branded graphic (thumbnail plus description text) that gets posted alongside the announcement.
- Account
SocialBu handles authentication, media upload, and scheduling the post out to every connected platform.
- Credential
Used purely for ops visibility — success and error messages land here so you know a run happened without checking n8n directly.
- Know-how
If you want instant notification instead of polling, YouTube's PubSubHubbub push service needs to reach your n8n webhook URL directly.
- Time
This template has 30 nodes across two trigger styles and several HTTP-driven services — budget time for wiring the SocialBu upload sequence correctly.
The basics — ticked once, remembered everywhere
- Account
Either the hosted version or a self-hosted install. Everything here works the same on both — the only visible difference is the shape of your webhook URLs.
Create a workspace - Know-how
Adding a node, connecting two of them, and pressing Execute. If any of that is new, the free primer covers it in about ten minutes.
- Credential
You will paste at least one secret during setup. A password manager beats a notes app, and it stops you pasting a live key into a chat window by accident.
The shape of the workflow
The nodes you will end up with, left to right, in the order you add them.
4 things to set here- 1HTTP Request — the trigger — everything starts here
- 2Webhook — YouTube Webhook Listener
- 3Respond to Webhook — Validate Security Token and Send Verification Response
- 4Code — Log Response
Skip the node hunting
Import a starter file with every node for this build already on the canvas, named after its step and wired in order, each one carrying a sticky note with the values to enter. You still connect your own accounts and fill the fields — that is what the walkthrough takes you through — but you never start at a blank canvas.
In n8n: Workflows → Import from file.
What you will build
Jump straight to any step, or print the list and tick it off beside your n8n tab.
- 1Subscribe to YouTube Notifications
- 2YouTube Webhook Listener
- 3Validate Security Token and Send Verification Response
- 4Log Response
- 5Poll the channel as a reliable fallback
- 6Organize Items
- 7If new video
- 8Generate Description
- 9Organaize Output
- 10Content drips Create Image
- 11SocialBu Access Token
- 12Get Accounts and Get Upload URL
- 13Download Image and Upload PDF
- 14Check if Image Uploaded
- 15Image Uploaded
- 16Merge and Organize Object
- 17Post to SocialBu Connected Accounts
- 18Destroy Access Token and Success Message
- 19Catch failures with the Error Trigger
- 20Trigger the polling path manually first
- 21Verify the webhook subscription separately
- 22Force an upload failure
If something goes wrong
Everything ready?
Start walkthrough