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App Guides

Create Post

The composer for turning an idea into a publish-ready post — write the caption, attach media, set per-platform options, and publish or schedule.

What Create Post is for

Create Post is where you go when you want direct control over a single post. You write the caption, you pick the platforms, you tweak the per-platform settings, you schedule or publish. It's the most-used screen in Aidelly for a reason — every other surface (Bulk Fill, Idea Board polish, Repurpose) eventually lands here for the final review before anything goes live.

This guide walks you through:

  1. Writing your first post
  2. Picking destinations
  3. Attaching media
  4. Per-platform settings that matter
  5. Scheduling vs. publishing immediately
  6. Saving as draft

Before you start

  • Connect at least one social account (Workspace Settings → Social Connections).
  • Have your caption text and any media (image, video) handy. Both can also come from Aidelly — the Media Library and Image Editor feed straight into the composer.

Step 1 — Open the composer

There are several entry points:

  • Sidebar → New post — fastest, opens a blank composer.
  • Calendar → click a date — opens the composer pre-scheduled for that day.
  • From Ideas, Repurpose, or Trends — opens the composer pre-filled with content.

The composer takes over the screen with:

  • Caption editor in the middle
  • Platform picker along the top
  • Media panel on the right
  • Per-platform settings below the platforms (appear after you pick one)
  • Action bar at the bottom: Save draft / Schedule / Publish now

Step 2 — Write the caption

  1. Click the caption editor and type.
  2. Use blank lines for paragraph breaks.
  3. Hashtags (#hashtag) and mentions (@handle) are picked up automatically — they'll appear in the platform previews on the right.

Character counts: Aidelly shows a live count for each selected platform. If a platform's limit is exceeded, the caption is highlighted in red and that platform's option to publish is disabled until you trim.

If you want different captions per platform (typical for X vs LinkedIn), click the platform's caption tab below the main editor and override just that one.

Step 3 — Pick destinations

  1. Toggle the platform icons across the top — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky, GBP, Mastodon.
  2. For platforms with multiple accounts (e.g. several Facebook Pages, multiple Mastodon instances), a dropdown appears under the icon — pick the specific account.
  3. Selected platforms light up; deselected ones grey out.

Tip: start with the platform that matters most for this post. Aidelly defaults caption settings to fit that platform; other platforms get a sensible truncation you can override later.

Step 4 — Attach media

  1. Click the media panel on the right.
  2. Pick a source:
    • Upload — drag a file or click to browse
    • Library — pick from the Media Library
    • Drive — pull from Google Drive (if connected)
    • Image Editor — open the editor inline, design something, send back here
  3. The media preview shows on every platform tab so you can see how each will render.

Important: different platforms have different media requirements:

  • Instagram Reels / TikTok / YouTube Shorts — 9:16 vertical video
  • LinkedIn / Facebook feed — 1:1 or 16:9 work; portrait gets cropped
  • Pinterest — 2:3 portrait performs best
  • Carousels — Instagram up to 10 slides, LinkedIn up to 20

Yellow flags appear under the media panel when something looks off (wrong aspect ratio for the selected platform, file too large, etc.). Open the flag for the fix.

Step 5 — Tweak per-platform settings

After you pick platforms, a settings strip appears under the platform picker. Most posts don't need these, but they matter when they do:

  • Instagram: pick Post / Reel / Story destination, optionally enable share to feed for Reels, add user tags and collaborators, set alt text.
  • TikTok: choose direct publish vs send as draft to the TikTok inbox; carousel auto-detected when all media are images.
  • LinkedIn: post as personal profile or company page; first 200 characters drive the share preview.
  • X: thread composer (split a long post into multiple tweets) and first comment scheduling (see Threads & First Comments).
  • Facebook / IG / LinkedIn / YouTube: schedule a first comment to drop the moment the post publishes.
  • Pinterest: pick the board the pin belongs to.
  • Google Business Profile: pick Update / Event / Offer type; CTA button required.
  • Mastodon: confirm the instance and visibility (public, unlisted, followers).

Step 6 — Choose when to publish

There are three actions in the bottom bar.

Publish now:

  1. Click Publish now.
  2. A confirmation dialog summarizes destinations and any AI Credit costs (e.g. X tweets cost credits, see Posting to X).
  3. Click Confirm.
  4. Posts go out within seconds. The composer reports per-platform success/failure.

Schedule:

  1. Click Schedule.
  2. Pick a date and time. Aidelly suggests the next best post time per platform if you click Use best time.
  3. Click Schedule in the dialog.
  4. The post lands in the Content Calendar at the chosen time.

Save as draft:

  1. Click Save draft.
  2. The composer closes; the draft is in Content → Drafts.
  3. Reopen it later from there or from the calendar's draft strip.

Step 7 — After publishing or scheduling

You're returned to the composer in a success state showing:

  • Which platforms succeeded (with links to the live posts)
  • Which failed and why (so you can fix and retry)
  • The scheduled time and calendar link, if scheduled

Click New post to start another, or Done to go back to where you came from.

Common pitfalls

  • Posts disappeared from drafts. They were scheduled or published. Check the calendar.
  • An X post failed with "rate limit." You've hit your daily X tweet cap. See Posting to X for the limits.
  • The Instagram destination keeps resetting. This was a bug in late May — fixed in PR #728. If you still see it, refresh and re-pick.
  • A scheduled post never published. Open the post in the calendar; the failure reason appears in the post panel. Usually a disconnected account — reconnect and reschedule.
  • The caption shows different counts per tab. That's intentional — each platform counts characters differently (URLs, hashtags). Trust the per-tab number.

What to do next

Page Tutor

Every page in Aidelly has a built-in read-only AI tutor that knows that page and answers "how do I use this?" in seconds.

Posting to X (Twitter)

How X posts are charged, the daily and connection limits per plan, and what to do when you hit a limit.