Daily quote carousel maker for Instagram

What it is

This n8n workflow puts a motivational quote carousel on Instagram every day with nobody at the keyboard. A schedule starts it at 10:00. An OpenAI agent brainstorms 50 quote ideas on personal motivation, picks one at random and writes a caption, three quotes and an image prompt for each. Blotato turns them into three quote cards. The workflow waits three minutes, fetches the finished images and has Blotato post them to Instagram. Seven more networks sit beside it, switched off.

Who it suits

Coaches, creators and small brands that keep an Instagram feed moving with short motivational cards, and would rather read a week of posts than write each one. Skip it if your brand needs its own wording or photos. The quotes come from a model and the pictures from an image generator, and no step asks you to approve them.

Where to use it

Any n8n that can reach OpenAI and Blotato will run it. A schedule starts it, so nothing needs to reach into your n8n from outside.

• n8n Cloud: import the file into a new workflow there, and publish it so the schedule runs
• Your own n8n server: the same file, with the schedule following the server’s time zone
• Blotato: your social accounts are connected there, and each carousel is also kept in its video dashboard under the title set in script
• Other networks: seven posting nodes come switched off, one each for Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, X, Bluesky and Pinterest

Setup

Get it saves a zip with workflow.json and Mindket’s setup notes in your downloads folder. Its author puts setup at about 8 minutes.

1. In n8n, create a workflow, open its menu, choose Import from File and pick workflow.json.
2. Add an OpenAI credential and select it in Brainstorm Idea and Brainstorm Idea 2.
3. Open SETUP. Put your Blotato key between the quotes of blotato_api_key and your Instagram account’s ID in instagram_id.
4. Select [Instagram] Publish via Blotato and press D to switch it off, so a first run posts nothing.
5. Save, press Execute workflow, and open Get Carousel in the run to see the finished images.
6. Switch the Instagram node back on and press Publish. From then on the schedule runs the workflow every day.

The Blotato key is not an n8n credential here. It is plain text in SETUP, and the three request nodes and every posting node read it from there.

How to use it

Once the workflow is published, there is nothing to open. The schedule runs it daily and each run makes one carousel. That is all there is to do. To post to another network, select its node, press D to switch it on and fill its account ID in SETUP. Facebook also needs facebook_page_id, and Pinterest needs pinterest_board_id.

Example

With the theme left as it is, the agent that feeds SETUP answers in this shape:

{
  "caption": "…",
  "scenes": [
    { "text": "…", "textToImagePrompt": "…" },
    { "text": "…", "textToImagePrompt": "…" },
    { "text": "…", "textToImagePrompt": "…" }
  ]
}

SETUP adds the Blotato template base/slides/quotecard, the style realistic and the image model replicate/black-forest-labs/flux-1.1-pro. Create Carousel sends it all to Blotato. Three minutes later Get Carousel returns the finished images, and the Instagram node posts them with the caption.

For newcomers and experts

If you are new. n8n draws a workflow as boxes joined by lines, and each box, a node, does one job. Blotato is a service that makes slideshow images and posts to social networks, and your accounts are connected there, so n8n needs only its key. Run it once by hand with the Instagram node off. Each node then shows what it received and sent, which is where a wrong key or an empty account ID turns up.

For experts. Everything outside OpenAI goes to three kinds of Blotato request, and the key travels in a header named blotato-api-key.

Threads, X and Bluesky send the first image as the post and the others as follow-ups in additionalPosts. The other four networks take all three images in mediaUrls. SETUP is a Set node in raw JSON mode, so it is one JSON text with the agent’s answers dropped in by expressions. Keep its quotes and commas when you edit it.

Good to know

Each run costs money at OpenAI and Blotato, and the workflow posts with no one to approve.

• First agent: one of the two agents is wired to the trigger but not to anything after it, so its gpt-4o call is paid for and never read. The README names it. Delete it with its model and parser, or feed its answer into SETUP instead of the other agent’s. Its scenes carry an image prompt and no quote text
• No review: nothing checks the quotes, the pictures or the caption before they are posted, so run the first days with the Instagram node off
• One wait: the workflow waits three minutes and fetches once. A slower render leaves the posting nodes without image addresses, so lengthen Wait if Blotato is slow
• Quotes: the model has no memory of earlier days, so a quote can repeat or echo a famous one
• Captions: they go into JSON text as written, so a double quote or a line break in one may break the request
• TikTok: its node says the post is public and not AI-generated. The pictures are AI-made, so change isAiGenerated before you switch it on
• Your key: it sits in SETUP as plain text and travels with any export of the workflow
• Credentials: the JSON holds none, and nothing from its author’s account