Repurpose Instagram Reels with Human Approval

This n8n and Make content automation template clones a viral Instagram reel with your Heygen AI avatar!

This human-in-the-loop Instagram Reel Repurposing system lets you take any Instagram Reel and instantly transform it into your own branded AI avatar video, WITHOUT having to film or edit yourself.

It combines content analysis, script rewriting, and HeyGen AI avatars to download reels, rewrite scripts and captions into a short 30-second format, regenerate the video with your chosen avatar and voice, and automatically post across every major social media platform including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Threads.

Everything runs end-to-end, so you only paste a link, approve the final script, while the system handles downloading, rewriting, video generation, and publishing your content every single day.

The most up-to-date docs & templates will always live here.

Here’s the Make tutorial:

Here’s the n8n tutorial:

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Overview

Here’s how the automation works:

1. Trigger: Airtable Input

• Paste the Instagram Reel link into the `ReelURL` column (optional: add a `BackgroundURL`).

2. Reel Processing

• Transcribe the Reel audio

• Rewrite into ~30 seconds of spoken text

• Generate SEO-optimized caption

• Create a viral overlay sentence for attention, that can be used as the title

3. Trigger 2: Human Approval

• Edit or approve the Script, Caption, and Overlay in Airtable

• Check the `Approved` box to confirm content is ready

4. Create Avatar Video

• Call Heygen API (requires paid API plan), specifying your avatar ID and voice ID

• Create avatar video, optionally passing in an image/video background if you have a green screen avatar

5. Get Video

• Wait awhile, then fetch completed avatar video

• Upload final version to Blotato

6. Publish to Social Media

• Connect Blotato to your social accounts

• Choose your social accounts

• Either post immediately or schedule for later

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Setup

• Ensure you have “Verified Community Nodes” enabled in your n8n Admin Panel. Then, install “Blotato” and “Apify” verified community node.

• Airtable Create a free account, then visit the Personal Access Token Page and create a new key (make sure to add data.records:read, data.records:write, schema.bases:read in Scopes and add your base in Access). Then create Airtable credential. Clone this Airtable Database. Copy your newly made Airtable Database URL and paste it in both Airtable Triggers under Base URL and Table URL.

• Blotato Sign up for Blotato, then go to Dashboard → API Keys to create your key. Then create Blotato credential.

• Apify Create a free account, then visit Account → Integrations → API Tokens to generate your token. Then create Apify credential.

• OpenAI Create a free account, then go to the API Keys page and create a new key. Then create OpenAI credential.

• HeyGen_API Sign up and visit the API access page to request an API key. Then paste the generated API Key under HeyGen_API in the Setup Node.

• Avatar_ID After creating/choosing an avatar in HeyGen, go to Avatars in the dashboard → copy the avatar ID from the developer panel. Then paste the Avatar ID under Avatar_ID in the Setup Node.

• Voice_ID In the HeyGen Voices section, select your desired voice and copy its ID from the developer panel or API docs. Then paste the Voice ID under Voice_ID in the Setup Node.

• Follow the 3 setup instruction in BROWN sticky notes in this template.

• If you want a background image/video behind your avatar, also add a publicly accessible link to the Background Video on Airtable Database in the field BackgroundURL. I only recommend doing this AFTER the full workflow is operational.

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Tips & Tricks

• While testing: enable only 1 social platform, and deactivate the rest for testing purposes. Update the AI agent node’s prompt to return a 5-second script, rather than 30 seconds, to reduce the processing duration.

• Go to Heygen and check that your avatar video is being processed.

• After the workflow finishes, check your social media account for the final post.

• If successful, then enable another social media node, and continue testing.

• Update prompt to match your niche / industry

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