Scheduling your first post

Scheduling your first post

Once you've connected at least one social account, you're ready to schedule your first post.

Creating a new post

Click the + New Post button in the top navigation bar, or click any empty slot on the Content Calendar.

Choosing accounts

At the top of the post composer, select which social accounts you want to publish to. You can post to multiple accounts simultaneously — Zestly will adapt the format for each platform automatically (e.g. Instagram captions vs. LinkedIn posts).

Writing your caption

Type your caption in the text editor. A few things to know:

• •Character counts are shown per platform in real time
• •Use the # hashtag button to browse your saved hashtag groups
• •Click AI Caption to generate a draft using Zestly's built-in AI (powered by Claude) — see the AI Caption Writer guide for details
• •You can write custom captions per platform by clicking the platform tabs at the top of the editor

Adding media

Click Upload Media or drag and drop images or videos. Supported formats:

• •Images: JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP (up to 20MB)
• •Videos: MP4, MOV (up to 1GB for most platforms)

You can also pull from your Media Library if you've already uploaded assets.

Choosing a publish time

Click Schedule and pick a date and time. Zestly shows your schedule in your workspace's local time zone.

Best Time to Post — click this button to see AI-powered suggestions based on your audience's engagement patterns (available on Pro and Enterprise plans).

Previewing your post

Click Preview to see how the post will look on each selected platform before scheduling.

Publishing

• •Schedule — adds the post to your queue at the chosen time
• •Publish Now — sends the post immediately (useful for urgent updates)
• •Save as Draft — saves without scheduling

Once scheduled, the post appears on your Content Calendar as a coloured card. Green = scheduled, grey = draft, red = failed.