# What are webhooks for social media posting, & when do you need them?

> A webhook pushes a notification to your own server the moment something happens, a post publishes, fails, or an account needs reconnecting, instead of your system having to repeatedly ask the API whether anything changed.

Updated: 2026-09-24.

## The problem webhooks actually solve

Without a webhook, finding out that a post published or failed means repeatedly calling the API to ask "has anything changed yet", polling on some interval & mostly getting the same answer back. A webhook flips that: instead of asking repeatedly, your own server gets a notification pushed to it the moment something actually happens.

This matters most for anything that needs to react quickly to a post's outcome, alerting a team when a scheduled post fails, or updating an internal dashboard the moment something publishes, without a noticeable delay from a polling interval.

## The events actually worth subscribing to

- **A post publishes**: useful for logging, internal notifications, or triggering a follow-up action
- **A post fails to publish**: the most time-sensitive one, since a silent failure is worse than an obvious one
- **A post gets rescheduled or cancelled**: useful for keeping an external system's own record in sync
- **An account needs reconnecting**: catches an expired connection before it causes a string of failures

Subscribing to every available event by default, rather than only the ones a system actually needs to react to, produces more noise than signal. Picking the handful that map to a real action worth taking is the more useful approach.

## How a webhook actually delivers safely

A webhook endpoint is a URL your own server exposes, & the sending service typically signs each delivery with a secret so your server can verify the notification genuinely came from that service & wasn't spoofed. Verifying that signature on receipt, rather than trusting any request that hits the endpoint, is a real security step worth taking seriously, not an optional extra.

## DunSocial's webhook events specifically

DunSocial supports webhook endpoints per workspace, configurable under Settings, subscribed to a specific set of post lifecycle events: a post being scheduled, rescheduled, cancelled, published, failing to publish, or a connected account needing reconnecting.

Each endpoint gets a signing secret, revealed once at creation & rotatable afterward, so a receiving server can verify deliveries genuinely came from DunSocial.

## Webhooks vs polling: when each makes sense

Polling still makes sense for a simple, infrequent check, a daily report pulling yesterday's post statuses doesn't need a webhook.

Webhooks make sense once timing matters, catching a failed post within minutes rather than discovering it at the next scheduled poll, or when polling frequently enough to feel responsive would mean far more API calls than a webhook subscription would.

DunSocial's own API supports both: a straightforward status check for infrequent reporting, & webhook subscriptions for anything that needs to react fast.

## A realistic setup

A team running its own internal dashboard alongside DunSocial might subscribe specifically to `post.publish_failed` & `social_account.reconnect_required`, the two events that genuinely need fast human attention, while leaving less urgent events to a periodic API check instead of building notification handling for every possible event upfront.

## Related guides

- [What can you automate with a social media API?](https://www.dunsocial.com/hub/social-media-automation-for-developers/what-can-you-automate-with-a-social-media-api.md)
- [How to automate social media posting in a CI/CD pipeline](https://www.dunsocial.com/hub/social-media-automation-for-developers/how-to-automate-social-media-posting-in-a-ci-cd-pipeline.md)
- [What happens if a scheduled post fails?](https://www.dunsocial.com/hub/social-media-scheduler/what-happens-if-a-scheduled-post-fails.md)
- [What is a personal access token & how does it secure API access?](https://www.dunsocial.com/hub/social-media-automation-for-developers/what-is-a-personal-access-token-and-how-does-it-secure-api-access.md)

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