Create and publish posts - Composer

Create and publish content with confidence in the new Composer. The full-screen compose experience gives you a preview of what your messages look like on each social network before you send or schedule them!

Composer contains other new features to help you craft messages efficiently. Try it out by clicking New Post  in the top-right corner of your dashboard.

Click Minimize  in the top-right corner to visit other areas of the dashboard and resume composing your message later.

Compose a message

Click Select Networks, and then select the social profiles to post your message to (only one Twitter profile can be selected per message). You can search by social network or profile name to surface the right profile. Click the arrow  to close the window when you’re done.
If you belong to more than one organization, select one in the top-left corner to view the social networks in that organization. Private social networks are always visible.

In the Text field, enter the content of your message. The character count for each social network selected will display above the Text field. Instagram captions can contain a maximum of 30 hashtags.
To mention a Twitter user, enter @ followed by their username, and then select the correct user from the list that populates.

Add emojis by clicking the smiley face  in the bottom-right corner.

Include a link

Enter or paste links right into the Text field. When a link is included in your message, a link preview for each social network will appear in the message preview on the right. More details about link previews
Link Settings will also appear at the bottom of the Composer. Click Edit to the right of Link Settings to shorten or add link tracking parameters to your link.

Free and Professional users can add one custom link parameter to each link. All other plan types can add multiple Custom or Google Analytics parameters. Enterprise customers can also track links with Adobe Analytics parameters.
Learn more about why and how to use link tracking parameters

To shrink the URL in your message and save characters, click None under Shorten my links with:, select Ow.ly, and then click Apply. The shortened link will display in your message preview on the right.
Members of Team, Business, and Enterprise organizations can also select any vanity URLs that have been set up for the organization. Enterprise organizations with external shorteners enabled like Bit.ly or Po.st can also select those here.

To add link tracking parameters, click None under I am tracking my links with:, and then select Custom or another available option. Enter the name, type, and value of each parameter to add to your link. An example URL below will display what the resulting link will look like.
Team, Business and Enterprise customers can choose dynamic parameter types, which will generate the value based on the social network/profile you are publishing to. You can also add up to 6 values per Google Analytics UTM name to combine them.
Optional for Free users: Check Make default settings for all links, to always apply your selected link settings going forward.
When you’re done adding parameters, click Apply.

Organizations: Admins can create link settings presets for all team members to use, which apply approved link tracking and/or shortening to links.
To apply an approved preset, click No Preset, and then select one. Or, click Customize to create your own, per the instructions above.
Admins can click Manage link presets upon clicking No Preset, to create, edit, and delete link presets for the organization, and manage enabled link shorteners.

Include images or video

Drag and drop files into the Media box or click select a file to upload to attach images or a video to your post. When multiple images are attached, drag-and-drop them within the list to reorder them in your posts.

Or, click Open Media Library to search free stock images or GIFs to include in your message. Click an image to attach it to your post. Click Free Images, and then select GIPHY to insert an animated GIF in tweets or Google+ messages.
Media library apps from the app directory can also be accessed here to easily attach approved media assets to your social posts. Click the Free Images drop-down to access your installed Media Library apps.
Click Close Media Library in the top-right corner.

On any attached image, click Edit with Creative Cloud to edit, crop, add overlays and text, or make other adjustments to it. Click Save and the edited image will appear in your message preview.
 Click any aspect ratio in Creative Cloud to crop your images in portrait or landscape!

Facebook: Images attached to a profile or Page post get uploaded to the Timeline Photos album by default. Uploading multiple images to the Timeline results in one post containing all the images. Click Timeline Photos to select a photo album to post them to.

Instagram: Posting multiple images to Instagram is not supported. If multiple images are attached, only the first one will post to Instagram. Learn more about publishing to Instagram from Hootsuite.

Find more details about posting images here

Add tags (Enterprise)

Tags are not visible on your posts, but they help you categorize them. Use tags to analyze the performance of your published content in Hootsuite Analytics.
To add tags to your messages, click Edit to the right of Tags. Click Add Tag , select the tag(s) to add to your message, and then click Add Tags. Organization admins can click Manage Tags to create new tags and manage existing ones in the tag library.

Send or schedule

Review how your message(s) will look on each social network with the per-network preview on the right. If the Composer detects any issues with a post, an error message will display below the preview.

To post the message right away, click Send Now in the bottom-right corner.

To schedule the message, click Schedule for later, select a date and time to publish the post, click Done, and then click Schedule.