How to automate viral content creation with Zapier Agents

I'm going to show you how to use this Viral Content Creation Agent template on Zapier Agents. And this page goes into essentially how the template works. You can review it for the basics and also the tools that are connected under Capabilities.

But I'm going to go over all this as we go through, so let's get started by clicking Use Template. On this page, there's nothing you can actually change yet. It's really just an overview of the instructions that the agent is going to use verbatim. So it's a good summary of the logic behind it, if you want to check that out before jumping in. It also shares the specific trigger that's going to work in tandem with the agent. And the last thing that I'll point out is that it also shows you whether or not it's an official Zapier template. You can check that for yourself by looking at this little checkmark here that says Zapier. And so since we can't change anything here yet, let's go ahead and click Use this template.

So the next step with using any of these agent templates, it typically involves connecting the different tools that make the agent run. And so as you can see, it's suggesting a couple of accounts that I've been using recently and that I already have connected to other Zapier workflows and automations. What's really cool is that you don't necessarily have to reconnect accounts that you already connected in other parts of Zapier. You'll be able to access them here. That being said, if you did want to connect some different accounts, if you wanted to add a new account, there are two ways to do it. It's either by clicking this widget and clicking Connect New Account or Manage Accounts, or by clicking this dropdown here and clicking the button.

I'm going to go with the Slack account that's already selected here and the Google Docs account, and I'm just going to connect the same Google Drive account. I'll note that—like it says here—this isn't the only opportunity that you have to connect these apps and these different tools that the agent's going to use. But I'm not going to—for the way that we're going through this agent—change my selections here. I'm just noting that if you did want to change them, then you will have another opportunity to do it. It's not only here.

So let's move forward by clicking Create. All right, so this is the agent itself, and you can interact with it. You can change the instructions if you want. I'm not going to be changing the instructions, but I'll try to give you some ideas for how you might customize this for your own workflow. Let's go through each of the things that you're seeing on the screen here, step by step.

So one of the first things is the trigger, and this one is triggered by a schedule, and in this case, it's scheduled by day. You could change it to every hour. You could change it to certain days. It's very flexible in terms of how you want it to run, how it makes sense for your workflows. There are other triggers, including different apps and actions within those apps that can trigger an agent. Another trigger that you'll come across if you check out more of these templates (or as you build different Zapier agents) is the on-demand trigger. Many of these agents work in the background autonomously based on those triggers, but the on-demand agent is one that you chat with in order to get it to execute its instructions. Every trigger, except for on-demand, requires that you flip it on with this toggle here that says Enable. If you want to use the agent outside of the testing that we're doing now, make sure that you click to enable the agent.

We've gone over the trigger. Now we can talk about the instructions. It says, "You are a content automation agent, and your goal is to research trending topics in the business niche." This you actually do have to personalize. Let's say that we want to put AI consulting as the niche. Create viral video scripts and supporting assets, configure engagement automation, and deliver everything in a shareable document with notifications. We do this with the connected tools and the logic of each step here. The first step, breaking that down, is topic research and selection, with three sub-steps of searching online for three trending topics in AI consulting, evaluating each for viral potential on TikTok short and long form, and selecting the best topic for further content creation.

The next step is content scripting: draft a five-second attention-grabbing hook that is controversial or viral, write an 80-second short video script with clear value, storytelling, and a call to action, expand into a five-minute long-form video script with full sentences and B-roll shot suggestions, generate captions for both short and long-form videos, and include up to six relevant hashtags. Create a two-paragraph, direct-response-style newsletter post to promote the videos.

There are a lot of steps here. But there is great potential once you know what you want it to focus on. It can help execute those steps with a first draft for each one. This is also a great place to customize the agent according to your needs. Maybe your newsletter isn't two paragraphs, maybe your videos are a different length, maybe you care about Instagram instead of TikTok. The more detail you give it, the better results you'll get. You might even create agents for different aspects of your business. But whenever AI generates content, treat it as a first draft—validate the points it makes and ensure you agree with the ideas before publishing.

Step three, document notify, compiles all scripts, captions, and the newsletter into a Google Doc. We have these tool calls: Google Docs (create document from text), Google Drive (add file sharing preference), and Slack (send direct message). You could customize the tools—like setting a fixed document name or folder—but the default lets the agent generate values for these fields, which makes setup flexible.

Now we're going to test the agent. This interface is similar to an on-demand chat, but because this isn't an on-demand trigger—it runs in the background. You'll still see the logic in the Activity tab as it works. It starts by asking whether to use Google search to find trending AI consulting topics or a preferred source. In a live run, it would decide on its own, but during testing you can weigh in. It uses Google Search even though it wasn't explicitly listed in the instructions—Zapier Agents can use certain tools automatically if the natural language instructions call for them. It extracts and evaluates three trending topics from expert sources, then gathers two more to complete the shortlist. It evaluates them and selects the best: “Agentic AI and the Real Value of Generative AI: Hype vs. Reality.” It then begins creating scripts and assets: generating a hook, an 80-second script, a five-minute script, captions, hashtags, and a newsletter post. You can customize these outputs—like limiting hashtags or changing formats.

Once the content is ready, it creates the Google Doc, updates sharing permissions, and sends the link in a Slack direct message. You can customize the Slack message as well. At the end, the doc is available in both the Activity log and your Slack DMs. The last step is to enable the agent with the toggle so it runs on schedule. You can view all workflow runs in the activity tab.

This is a powerful, customizable way to create an efficient marketing workflow for your niche, based on trending topics people are talking about. Customize it, run it, and see what you can create.