Idea Board

What Idea Board is for

Idea Board is where you keep half-formed thoughts before they're posts. If you're walking the dog and a tweet lands in your head, you open Aidelly, drop one line on the board, and move on. Later you come back, add a few more notes, and let the editor turn the pile into a clean draft.

This guide walks you through:

1. Capturing your first idea
2. Building it up over time
3. Polishing it into a ready-to-post draft
4. Sending the polished output to the composer or calendar

Beginner-friendly throughout — no prior Aidelly experience assumed.

Before you start

You'll be ready in about a minute:

• Sign in to Aidelly and open any workspace
• (Optional but recommended) Set your brand voice in Brand Profile — polish uses it to keep the output sounding like you. If you haven't, polish still works, it just defaults to a neutral tone

You do not need any social account connected to use Idea Board — capturing and polishing ideas is free of platform requirements.

Step 1 — Open the Idea Board

1. In the left sidebar, look for the lightbulb icon labeled Ideas.
2. Click it. The Idea Board page opens with any existing ideas as cards.
3. If this is your first time, the board is empty — you'll see a "Start capturing" empty state with a New idea button in the top-right.

Step 2 — Capture your first idea

There are three ways to start an idea. Pick whichever fits the moment:

Blank — when you just want a place to type.

1. Click New idea in the top-right.
2. A blank card opens with a single textbox.
3. Type the first thing on your mind. Don't edit. Don't structure it. Just dump it.
4. Click anywhere outside the textbox — the idea auto-saves.

From a writing prompt — when you want a starting point.

1. Click New idea → From prompt.
2. Pick a prompt from the list (e.g. "What did you learn this week?").
3. The prompt seeds the first entry; replace or expand it.

From a trending topic — when you want to ride momentum.

1. Click New idea → From trending topic.
2. Pick a topic from the suggestions (these come from your tracked niches in Viral Trends).
3. The topic seeds the first entry; add your angle.

Tip: the first entry shows up as the card preview on the board. Make sure it captures the gist so future-you can spot it at a glance.

Step 3 — Build the idea up

You don't have to finish an idea in one sitting. Reopen the card any time and add more:

1. Click the card to open the editor.
2. The left side shows a timeline of every entry on this idea (newest at the bottom).
3. Type a new entry in the bottom textbox and press Enter (or click Add entry).
4. Repeat as ideas come to you. There's no limit.

You can also:

• Add tags — click the tag chip area at the top to organize by topic, campaign, or platform.
• Pin the idea — click the pin icon next to the title to keep it at the top of the board.
• Rename it — click the title to give it a clearer name once it has shape.

Step 4 — Polish the idea into a draft

When the idea has enough raw material, polish it into a finished piece.

1. Open the idea.
2. Click Polish in the top-right of the editor.
3. Pick a format:
   • Short post — single post for X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon
   • Thread — multi-post chain for X or Bluesky
   • Newsletter — long-form email body
   • LinkedIn — long-form professional post
4. Pick an intensity:
   • Light — minor cleanup, keeps your wording almost intact
   • Medium — typical polish; restructures lightly
   • Heavy — full rewrite while preserving your point of view
5. Click Polish now. The output appears in 5–15 seconds depending on length.

Why intensity matters: "light" is best when you wrote a near-final draft yourself. "Heavy" is best when you dumped a stream of consciousness and need real structure. When in doubt, pick medium.

Step 5 — Send the polished output to the composer

You have three options from the polish output panel:

1. Send to composer — opens Create Post pre-filled with the polished text. Pick platforms, add media, schedule or publish.
2. Save as draft — keeps the polish in the idea's history but doesn't open the composer.
3. Polish again — generates another variation. The originals stay in the history.

Common pitfalls

• The polish reads like an AI wrote it. Use light intensity instead — the editor preserves more of your wording. Also fill in your brand voice profile so polish matches your tone.
• The card preview shows the wrong text. The preview always uses the most recent entry. If you want it to show something specific, add that entry last.
• The idea won't polish. It needs at least one entry with real text. Audio entries that haven't transcribed yet count as empty.

What to do next

• Send polished output to Create Post and schedule it.
• If you generated a thread, see Threads & First Comments for how to refine it before publishing.
• Use Viral Trends to seed new ideas from what's working in your niche.

Related guides

• Brand Profile — set your voice so polish matches your tone
• Create Post — the composer that ideas eventually flow into
• Viral Trends — feed trending topics straight into the board
• Content Calendar — see scheduled output from polished ideas