Social Media Autopilot with Claude, n8n, Canva and Buffer

What this system does

Every Monday at 9 AM, n8n wakes up and runs your whole content week:

1. Claude researches what your niche is talking about this week.
2. Claude writes native posts for LinkedIn, X and Instagram.
3. You get one email with everything. Click Approve.
4. Canva drops the headline into your brand template and exports the visual.
5. Buffer queues every post at your best times.
6. Every Friday, Claude reads the results and emails you next week's plan.

Your only job is to approve.

What you need

• n8n (Cloud or self-hosted)
• An Anthropic API key for Claude
• Gmail (approval email and weekly report)
• Canva with a brand template and access to the Canva Connect API (autofill needs Canva Enterprise or a Canva developer integration)
• Buffer with your social channels connected, and a Buffer API key

Step 1: Import the workflow

1. Download the JSON file below.
2. In n8n, create a new workflow and choose ⋯ → Import from File (or paste the JSON onto the canvas).
3. You will see two lanes: the Monday content lane and the Friday review lane.

Step 2: Set the weekly trigger and your brand settings

• Every Monday 9 AM is already set. Change the day or hour if you like (the workflow timezone is Asia/Kolkata; change it in workflow settings).
• Open Brand settings and fill in your niche, audience, voice, Canva template id, Buffer channel ids and your email.

Find your Buffer channel ids in Buffer under each channel's settings, or ask Claude with the Buffer connector to list them.

Step 3: Let Claude research trending topics

Connect your Anthropic key on Claude (research). The Research trends agent searches Google News for the last 7 days and returns 3 topics with sources. Change its prompt to focus on your niche, not generic topics.

Step 4: Let Claude write posts for every platform

Connect Anthropic on Claude (writer) too. Write posts returns a headline plus a LinkedIn, X and Instagram version of the same idea, written natively for each platform. Edit the rules in its prompt to match your voice.

Step 5: Approve, then turn posts into visuals

• Ask for approval emails you all the posts and waits. Connect Gmail.
• After you click Approve, the Canva nodes fill your brand template's headline field and export a PNG. Create a Canva OAuth2 credential in n8n and select it on the three Canva nodes. Your template needs a text field named headline.

Step 6: Schedule everything in Buffer

Create a Header Auth credential in n8n with name Authorization and value Bearer YOUR_BUFFER_API_KEY and select it on Buffer: add to queue. Each post lands in your Buffer queue with the Canva image, at your best time for that platform.

Step 7: Track and improve every Friday

The Every Friday 5 PM lane pulls last week's posts and metrics from Buffer (set your Buffer organization id in Buffer: last 7 days), asks Claude what worked, and emails you a short plan: best format, best time, best topic and 3 changes for next week.

Step 8: Test, then activate

1. Click Execute workflow on the Monday lane and approve the email.
2. Check the Buffer queue for the new posts.
3. Flip the workflow to Active.

Tips

• Start with approval on. Once you trust it, you can remove the approval step.
• Keep one Canva template per format (carousel cover, quote card) and switch the template id.
• Credentials are never included in an imported workflow. Connect your own on every red node.