Social publishing

Social publishing is where you compose a post once, choose which connected accounts it goes to, and either publish it now or schedule it for later - without logging in and out of each platform. You can also save it as a draft to finish later, or send it to someone for approval before it goes out.

Who can publish

Creating, scheduling, editing, and deleting posts is an Editor capability (including admins who also edit), and so are saving and discarding drafts and sending a post for approval. Other roles can open the planner and calendar in read-only mode, and can open a draft in the composer without being able to change it: the footer says “You have view-only access, so this post can’t be saved, published or discarded.”

Where it lives

Open External from the top navigation and choose the Social Media tile. The composer, the list of scheduled posts, and the calendar all live here.

Posts Overview lists your posts, drafts included, with filters by status and by platform. Open it with View All on the Social Posts card on the External home. Its New Post button brings you back to the composer. A card whose post has no caption reads “No caption.”

Compose a post

1. Choose your channels. Pick the connected accounts you want to publish to. Selection is per account, not just per platform - so you can post to several accounts, across several platforms, in one go. A platform with no connected account is shown greyed out.

2. Pick a post type. Post, Reel, or Story. The available types depend on the platforms you selected (see the table below). With TikTok selected, Post publishes a TikTok photo post - TikTok starts on Reel, so pick Post after you’ve chosen your platforms.

3. Add your media. A Post takes up to 10 images (JPG, JPEG, PNG or GIF); a Reel takes one video; a Story takes one image or video. A video starts uploading as soon as you add it, and it has to fit the limits of every platform you selected - see Videos.

4. Write your caption. One caption is shared across every selected platform - it publishes the same to all of them. The character counter reflects the most restrictive of your selected platforms, and counts the caption exactly as HIVE will send it, line breaks included. (YouTube also needs its own Title, up to 100 characters.)

5. Add any extras. Depending on the platforms selected, you can add a first comment (Instagram/Facebook), tag people, or invite collaborators (both Instagram) - see below.

6. Publish, schedule, save or send for approval. Publish now, or pick a future date and time and let HIVE post it for you. Or keep it as a draft to finish later, or send it for approval so that someone signs it off before it goes out.

Post types and media

Platform	Post types
Instagram	Post, Reel, Story
Facebook	Post, Reel
LinkedIn	Post, Reel, Document
TikTok	Post (photos), Reel (video)
YouTube	Reel (video)

The composer only offers the post types your selected platforms share - mix platforms and you’ll see the types they have in common.

• Post - up to 10 images (JPG, JPEG, PNG or GIF). On TikTok this publishes as a photo post - see Photo posts.
• Reel - one video. An MP4, MOV or WebM file can be up to 256 GB and another video file up to 512 MB, within each platform’s own limits - see Videos.
• Story - one image or video (Instagram).
• Document - one PDF (LinkedIn - see Document posts).

Caption and AI help

The caption is a single editor shared by every selected platform - there’s no separate caption per platform. The live counter turns red if you go over the limit of the strictest platform you’ve selected.

Pasting text in

Text you paste into the caption box arrives as plain text, tidied as it lands, in both the composer and the Edit Scheduled Post dialog:

• Formatting from wherever you copied it is dropped. Text from Word, Google Docs or another browser tab takes on the caption box’s own styling instead of arriving in its source font, size and colour. No platform would have published that styling anyway.
• Your line and paragraph breaks are kept, and a run of empty lines is reduced to a single blank line between paragraphs - the spacer paragraphs Word and Google Docs add no longer stack up.
• Trailing spaces at the end of each line are removed, and Windows and Mac line endings come out the same.
• A post copied from LinkedIn loses the hidden “hashtag” label LinkedIn places in front of each tag, so you get #Marketing rather than hashtag#Marketing. This works on English LinkedIn only - a post copied from LinkedIn in another language still carries that language’s label, so check your tags before publishing.

Everything else comes through as you copied it, curly quotes, dashes and bullet characters included. It all happens at the moment you paste, so you can see it and undo it.

Bold and Italic in the caption toolbar style the text in the editor only. Social platforms take plain text, so that styling is dropped on the way out and doesn’t appear in the preview.

Stories are media only

When you select Story, the caption editor doesn’t appear - an Instagram Story publishes as media only (no caption, tags, location, or collaborators).

You can draft a caption yourself, or use AI to generate one: give it a key message and a goal (and, if you like, a tone, language, and how many variations to produce), and HIVE returns a set of caption drafts. Insert the one you like and edit it before publishing - the drafts are a starting point, not a finished caption.

First comment

When you have Instagram or Facebook selected and you’re not posting a Story, you can add a first comment. HIVE posts it as the first comment once your post goes live - useful for hashtags or links you’d rather keep out of the caption itself.

Note

First comment is available for Instagram and Facebook only. It isn’t offered for Stories.

Instagram extras

These apply to Instagram only, and not to Stories:

• Tag people. Tag accounts in your post - position tags on a photo, or list them on a reel. Up to 30 per post. Handles are checked before publishing.
• Collaborators. Invite up to 3 public Business or Creator accounts as co-authors. Once an account accepts, the post also appears on its profile.

Document posts (LinkedIn)

Add a PDF to a LinkedIn post and it publishes as a document post - the swipeable deck LinkedIn shows inline in the feed, rather than a file to download. Useful for reports, decks, and one-pagers.

• LinkedIn only, and one PDF per post. A document post carries no other media alongside it.
• A title is required - LinkedIn renders it as the header above the deck, up to 200 characters. Once the PDF is attached, it’s required to save the post at all, including as a draft.
• Up to 100 MB. LinkedIn also caps documents at 300 pages; a longer file is refused by LinkedIn rather than by HIVE.
• PDF only. Other document formats aren’t offered.

The composer preview shows the deck the way LinkedIn will render it, and the post’s media tile in your list and on the calendar shows page one as its thumbnail.

Note

LinkedIn processes the document after HIVE hands it over, so a document post can take a little longer to go live than a regular post.

Photo posts (TikTok)

Select TikTok, pick Post, and your images publish as a TikTok photo post rather than a video. TikTok starts on Reel whenever you change which platforms are selected, so choose Post last.

• Up to 10 images - JPG, JPEG, PNG or GIF. The first image is the cover, and you can drag the tiles to reorder the set - except images already saved on a draft, which keep their order (see Reopening a draft).
• An optional Title, up to 90 characters, in TikTok Settings on the post. TikTok shows it in bold above your caption, and your caption is posted separately. Clear the field to remove it. The Title is photo-only: on a Reel, TikTok uses your caption there instead.
• A caption of up to 4,000 characters on a TikTok Post, against 2,200 on a Reel. Select another platform alongside TikTok and the counter tightens to whichever is strictest.
• A privacy choice is required before you can publish, in TikTok Settings. HIVE shows only the options TikTok returns for your account - usually Public, Friends and Only me, though a private account sees fewer, and Only me can’t be chosen while the post is marked as branded content.
• Comments are the only interaction setting. Duet and Stitch aren’t offered on a photo post, because TikTok’s own guidelines don’t allow them there.
• Schedule it like any other post. Photo posts follow the same scheduling, editing and status behaviour as a Reel, and the Title stays editable while the post is Scheduled.

What TikTok receives

TikTok is stricter about images than the other platforms, so HIVE prepares a copy of each one for it: a JPEG at up to 1080 pixels on its longest edge, with any transparent areas filled in white. Your original file is untouched, and every other platform you selected publishes that original.

Videos

An MP4, MOV or WebM video starts uploading as soon as you add it, while you finish the post. Whatever its format, HIVE checks it against the limits of every platform you selected before you can save or publish it.

Uploading a video

• It starts straight away. The video’s tile shows Preparing…, then how much has uploaded as a percentage, then Processing… while HIVE checks the file. Removing the video stops its upload.
• Save draft and the publish button are greyed out until it has finished, and the composer says “Your video is still uploading. You can save or publish when it finishes.” Send for approval saves the draft first, so its dialog doesn’t open until then either.
• If an upload stops, the tile shows Upload failed with a Retry button, and the composer lists the video and the reason under Video upload stopped. Use Retry, or remove the video. Until you do, Save draft and the publish button stay greyed out.
• If you close or reload the page during an upload, the composer lists the unfinished uploads the next time you open it and says “Pick the same file again to continue where it stopped.” Add the same file again, in the same browser and within a day, and the upload carries on from where it stopped, with the tile showing Resuming and the percentage. Otherwise it starts over. Dismiss clears the notice.
• Save or publish within a day. A finished upload is kept for 24 hours until a post holds it. After that HIVE says “One of the videos is no longer available. Upload it again.”
• Other video files, such as AVI, are sent with the post when you save or publish, as before, and can be up to 512 MB. The composer names them and says they “will upload when you save or publish.” The same happens to an MP4, MOV or WebM video of up to 512 MB if HIVE can’t start its upload.

Video limits by platform

These are the limits HIVE applies to a video for each platform. The composer checks them against the channels you selected while the video is on screen, and lists anything that doesn’t fit under This video can’t be published here, for example “LinkedIn accepts MP4 videos only.” While something is listed there, Save draft and the publish button are greyed out.

Platform	Size	Length	File types
YouTube	Up to 256 GB	Up to 12 hours, and over 15 minutes only for channels YouTube allows - see below	Not checked
TikTok	Up to 4 GB	Up to 10 minutes	MP4, MOV or WebM
LinkedIn	Up to 500 MB	3 seconds to 30 minutes	MP4 only
Instagram Reel	Up to 300 MB	3 seconds to 15 minutes	MP4 or MOV
Instagram Story	Up to 100 MB	3 to 60 seconds	MP4 or MOV
Facebook	Up to 1 GB (HIVE’s own limit)	Not checked	Not checked

• HIVE checks again when you save a draft or publish, when you update a scheduled post, and when a scheduled post goes out. A scheduled post whose video no longer fits is marked Failed, with the reason.
• A length HIVE can’t read isn’t checked, and the platform decides.
• TikTok can set a shorter maximum for your account. HIVE checks it when you publish, and says TikTok: Video too long if the video is over it.

Videos over 15 minutes on YouTube

YouTube takes a video over 15 minutes only from a channel it allows long uploads from, which usually means a verified channel. When a video for YouTube is over 15 minutes, HIVE asks YouTube about the channel, and if it can’t take the video, the composer lists one of these under This video can’t be published here:

• “This YouTube channel must be verified before it can publish videos longer than 15 minutes. Verify it at youtube.com/verify, then publish again.”
• “This YouTube channel cannot publish videos longer than 15 minutes right now. Check the channel in YouTube Studio, then publish again.”

The publish button stays greyed out until the channel is allowed or you add a shorter video. Save draft isn’t affected, so you can save the post and verify the channel first. HIVE asks again when you publish, and once more before it starts sending the video to YouTube, where a refusal marks the post Failed with the same reason. If HIVE can’t read the video’s length, or YouTube doesn’t answer, nothing is blocked and YouTube decides.

How YouTube receives your video

Publishing or scheduling a YouTube post doesn’t wait for YouTube. HIVE sends the video in the background, after the composer has cleared, so even a very large video doesn’t hold you up.

• The composer says so. For a post going out now it says Publishing, “Your post is being published on YouTube. Its status in Posts updates when each platform finishes.” For a scheduled post it says Post Scheduled, “YouTube is receiving the video in the background. It goes public at the time you picked.”
• The post shows Publishing until YouTube has the whole video, which for a large video can take hours. Until then it has no link and no chip. Then it shows Published, or Scheduled with a Scheduled on YouTube chip if it has a publish time. If that time passes before YouTube has the whole video, the video goes public as soon as YouTube has it.
• A dropped connection doesn’t start it over. HIVE carries on from where YouTube says it got to.
• If YouTube can’t take the video, the YouTube post is marked Failed, its preview shows the reason after Publish failed:, and HIVE sends its post-failure email, as set in Email notifications. The same happens if YouTube still doesn’t have the whole video after 48 hours, or if the YouTube account is disconnected first. A failed post can’t be published again, so compose it again. On a post that also went to other platforms, only the YouTube channel is marked Failed.
• To stop the upload, delete the post - see Deleting a post. Cancel schedule appears only once YouTube has the whole video.

Scheduling

Choose Publish now, or schedule for later by picking a date and time. A scheduled time has to be in the future. Scheduled posts appear in your list and on the calendar until they go live, and anything due in the next seven days also shows on the Pulse Timeline on your dashboard - see HIVE Pulse.

A post can also go out without you pressing publish: when you send it for approval, the approval itself publishes it, or schedules it for its date. And a draft can carry a date without being scheduled - it sits on the calendar in blue, but nothing goes out until you publish it.

Drafts

A draft is a post you’ve saved in HIVE without publishing or scheduling it. Nothing is sent to any platform - YouTube included - until you publish it.

Saving a draft

The composer footer has these buttons, left to right:

Button	What it does
Close	Leaves the composer.
Save draft	Saves the post as a draft.
Discard	Deletes the draft you have open - see Discarding a draft. It’s available once the composer is holding a saved draft.
Send for approval	Saves the draft and sends it to one or more contacts to approve - see Sending a post for approval. While a request is open, Cancel approval request takes its place.
Publish to or Schedule to, with the number of channels	Publishes the post now, or schedules it if you chose Schedule for Later.

Everything but Close is for Editors only, and greyed out for anyone else. Save draft and Discard are also greyed out while something is saving, publishing or being discarded, and the publish button while something is publishing or being discarded. Save draft and the publish button are both greyed out while a video is uploading or its upload has stopped, and while a video is outside the limits of a platform you selected - see Videos. The publish button also stays greyed out while something on the post still needs fixing - an Instagram media error, a collaborator that is still being checked or failed the check, missing TikTok or document settings, or a YouTube channel that can’t take a video over 15 minutes.

A draft needs at least one channel, and a name in HIVE Internal Memo - that name is how the draft is listed everywhere. The caption, the media and the TikTok privacy choice can wait until you publish. A video on the draft has to fit the limits of every platform on it, though. If it doesn’t, the draft isn’t saved: where the composer hasn’t already greyed out Save draft, HIVE says Draft not saved and names the platform and its limit - see Video limits by platform. When it’s saved, HIVE confirms with “Your draft is saved. It stays out of the schedule until you publish it.”, and media that was on the draft when it was opened shows Saved in place of its file size.

A YouTube title and a LinkedIn document’s PDF can wait the first time you save a draft, but not after that. When you save the draft again, one going to YouTube needs its YouTube title, and a LinkedIn document post needs its PDF and its title. Otherwise HIVE says Draft not saved with the reason, for example “YouTube title is required when publishing to YouTube.” or “A document post must have exactly one document attached.”

You can give a draft a date under Schedule for Later. The date is kept with the draft and puts it on the calendars, but it schedules nothing.

An Instagram collaborator that’s still being checked, or that failed the check, isn’t saved with the draft.

Finding your drafts

• Posts Overview lists drafts under the Draft filter and under All. A draft shows one card per channel, with a blue Draft badge. Select a card to open the draft in the composer.
• The calendars show a draft that has a date, in blue, on that date - both the Calendar tab in External and the Social Media Calendar below the composer. Select it on the Week, Month or List view to open it in the composer. A draft with no date isn’t on any calendar, so find it on Posts Overview.
• The Pulse Timeline on your dashboard also shows a dated draft that’s due in the next seven days.

A draft that is waiting for approval leaves the Draft filter and the calendars until the request ends - see While it waits.

Reopening a draft

Opening a draft restores what you saved: the channels, post type, memo, caption and date, each platform’s settings, the media in its saved order, the Reel cover and Instagram people tags. If a colleague has published or deleted it in the meantime, it won’t open, and HIVE shows Could not open draft.

Media that’s already saved on the draft has a few limits:

• It keeps its order. You can’t drag saved media into a different order, or drag a new file in front of it: “Media already saved on this draft keeps the order it was saved in. Remove it and add it again to reorder.” New files you add after it can still be reordered among themselves.
• Changing the post type removes it. A different post type needs different media, so HIVE takes the saved media off and says Saved media removed. That also happens when changing your channels switches the post type for you. To get it back, reopen the draft before you save.
• Removing it takes effect when you save: “It will come off the post when you save.”
• A saved Reel video has no frame preview. On the Pick frame tab of the Instagram Reel cover, HIVE says “We can’t show a preview of this frame, but the time you pick is still saved as the cover.”

Publishing a draft

Use the publish button as you would for any post. HIVE saves your changes to the draft first, then publishes that same post - or schedules it, if it has a future date. All the usual publishing checks apply.

• If the draft’s date has already passed, it isn’t published. HIVE says “This draft was scheduled for a time that has already passed. Open it and pick a new time, or clear the date to publish now.” You’re already in it: choose a future time under Schedule for Later, or choose Publish Now.
• If every platform refuses it, it goes back to being a draft, and the composer keeps what you wrote so you can fix it and try again. If at least one platform takes it, it’s Partial, as for any post.
• If it’s still going out after about 40 seconds, the composer clears and says the post is being published - see Limits and known behaviours. If every platform then refuses it, it’s back under Draft, and HIVE sends its post-failure email.
• A draft going to YouTube is the exception: it doesn’t come back to Drafts, even if every platform refuses it. YouTube receives the video in the background after the composer has cleared, so if YouTube can’t take it, the YouTube post ends Failed. To try again, compose the post again - see How YouTube receives your video.
• A draft that is waiting for approval can’t be published by you until the request ends - see While it waits.

Discarding a draft

Discard deletes the draft you have open, on every channel. HIVE asks Discard this draft? - “This removes the draft and every channel saved with it. You’ll still see it in Posts as deleted.” - and Discard draft confirms. Nothing is sent to any platform. The draft then shows as Deleted on Posts Overview, and you’re taken back to the External home.

If the draft has an open approval request, discarding it also withdraws the request and emails the approvers - see Cancelling a request.

To delete a draft from Posts Overview or a calendar instead, see Deleting a post.

Sending a post for approval

You can have a post signed off before it goes out. You pick one or more contacts as approvers, and each of them gets an email with their own link to read the post and approve it or send it back. The first answer decides. Approving publishes the post, or schedules it for its date - you don’t need to do anything else.

Sending a post for approval is an Editor action. Approvers are contacts from Settings → Contacts, and they don’t need a HIVE account.

Not for posts going to YouTube

A post going to YouTube can’t be sent for approval. HIVE refuses it with “A post going to YouTube cannot be sent for approval yet. Remove YouTube from this post, or publish it yourself.”

Sending it

1. In the composer, choose Send for approval. HIVE saves the draft first, with the same rules as Save draft, so your changes are saved even if you then close the dialog.

2. Check what approval will do. The Send this post for approval dialog opens with a box at the top. For a post with no date it says, highlighted, that the post will publish immediately once approved. For a dated post it says the post will be scheduled for that date and time.

3. Pick your approvers under Approvers. Search for contacts, or pick a contact group to add its members - you can expand a group and untick people. Someone picked twice counts once. You can pick up to 20 approvers; a pick that would go past 20 is refused in the list with “A post can be sent to at most 20 approvers.”

4. Choose Send for approval.

If every email went out, the composer closes and you land on the External home, where the post sits at the top of the Social Posts card with an Approval requested badge. If only some went out, HIVE says Not every approval email went out and names who was missed. The request still stands for everyone who got it; to include the others, cancel it and send it again. If none went out, you stay in the composer - cancel the request and try again.

HIVE refuses the request, under Could not send for approval, when:

• the post goes to YouTube (see above);
• an approver has no usable email address - HIVE names them and keeps your picks, so you can untick them or fix their address in Settings → Contacts.

What the approvers get

Each approver gets an email whose subject names you and the post, with a Read the post button that opens their own approval page. The link is theirs alone, and if nobody has answered within seven days it stops working. The emails and the page are in English. They come from the same HIVE address as crisis communications, unless an admin has routed the Post approval requests category to your own domain - see Who HIVE’s emails come from.

The approval page shows:

• the post’s name, and, for a dated post, when it’s scheduled for;
• the post in the same platform previews you see in the composer, and a Going to list of every channel;
• Approve and publish for a post with no date, or Approve and schedule for a dated one;
• Send it back, which opens an optional note, What should change? (optional). Up to 500 characters of the note are kept.

Times on the page are shown in the approver’s own time zone, as their browser reports it.

You can keep editing the post while it waits, and the approvers always see the current version. If it has changed since they were asked, a notice above the previews tells them so: “The previews below show the current version.” If it changes while they have the page open, their approval isn’t recorded and the page reloads with the current version.

Once the request is finished, their link shows This request is no longer open and what happened: that they approved or declined it, that someone else did (by name), that you withdrew it, or that it expired.

What approval does

Approving releases the post straight away. A post with no date is published to every channel at once; a dated post is scheduled for its date. The request is then closed, and the post’s preview shows Approved by with the approver’s name and the date.

If the post can’t go out as it stands - an account has been disconnected, for example - the approval isn’t recorded and the request stays open. The approver sees “This post cannot be approved yet, because it could not be published as it stands. The person who sent it needs to fix it first.”

If the approval is recorded but every platform then refuses the post, the approval stands and the post goes back to being a draft. Open it and publish it yourself, as it is.

If the post's time passes while it waits

A dated post is released for the date and time saved on it. If that time passes before anyone approves it, it can’t be approved: the approver gets the “cannot be approved yet” message above, and HIVE doesn’t tell you. If a request is taking a while, check the date. To move it, cancel the request, pick a new time and send it again.

Several approvers

• The first answer decides for everyone. One approval publishes or schedules the post; one send-back returns it to you.
• The others aren’t emailed when someone answers. If they open their link, it shows who answered and when.
• Nothing in the email or on the page says that other people were asked, and neither ever lists them.
• Once an approval has published or scheduled the post, nobody can send it back. Only if it didn’t go out - every platform refused it - can the approver who approved still send it back from their link. Nobody else can overturn an approval.

While it waits

• You can’t publish it yourself. Pressing publish is refused, with a message that says who it’s waiting for and “You can cancel the request if you want to publish it yourself.”
• It moves out of Drafts and off the calendars. On Posts Overview it’s under the Approval requested filter instead of Draft (it’s still under All), with an amber Approval requested badge in place of Draft. It’s back on the calendars when the request ends.
• It’s at the top of the Social Posts card on the External home, with the same badge.
• On the Pulse Timeline, a dated post due in the next seven days shows Approval requested instead of Draft.

When you open it in the composer, a banner above the steps says where it has got to:

State	What the banner says
Waiting for an answer (amber)	Who it’s with - a name, or the number of approvers - and “You can keep editing it. They always see the current version, so anything you change now is what they will be asked to approve.” With several approvers it adds “The first of them to answer decides for everyone.”, and it counts any approvers who have since been removed from your contacts.
Approved, but not gone out (green)	Who approved it, and “It has not gone out yet. Publish it when you are ready - if you change it first, it needs approving again.” If you change it and then publish, HIVE refuses and asks you to send it for approval again or cancel the request.
Nobody left to answer (amber)	“Nobody on this request can approve it any more.” - every approver has been removed from your contacts - and “Cancel the request to publish it yourself, or send it for approval again. Until you do, this post is not in your Drafts or on the calendar.”

A request nobody answers expires after seven days, and the approvers’ links stop working. You aren’t emailed. When you next open the draft it’s an ordinary draft again, with Send for approval back in the footer - until then, Posts Overview can go on listing it under Approval requested.

Sent back

When an approver sends the post back, it’s a draft again: back under Draft, and on the calendars if it has a date, with a rose Sent back chip beside its badge on Posts Overview. Hover the chip to see who sent it back. On the Pulse Timeline, a dated one shows Sent back in place of its status. The chip stays until the post is sent for approval again, so if you publish or schedule it yourself instead, it keeps the Sent back chip beside its new status badge.

Open it in the composer and a notice says who sent it back and when, followed by their note - or, if they didn’t write one, “They did not say what should change.” Make your changes and choose Send for approval again.

Cancelling a request

While a request is open, the footer shows Cancel approval request in place of Send for approval. Cancelling makes the post an ordinary draft again, so you can publish it yourself or send it for approval again. HIVE confirms with “Approval request cancelled.”

Every approver whose link still works is emailed that the request was withdrawn and there’s nothing for them to do, and their link then says so.

To send a post to different approvers, or to send it again after changing it, cancel first: while a request is open, Cancel approval request is the only approval control in the footer. Where HIVE’s messages say “send it for approval again”, that’s what they mean.

Discarding the draft, or deleting it from Posts Overview or a calendar, also withdraws an open request and sends the same email. The delete confirmations don’t mention this.

The emails you get

As the person who sent the request, you’re emailed when an approver answers:

• Approved: who approved it and what happened - “It has gone out.”, “It is being published now. Open it in HIVE to see when it is live.” if it’s still going out, the date and time it’s scheduled for, or “The post did not go out - open it in HIVE to see what happened and try again.” A scheduled time is shown in the time zone your browser was in when you sent the request, and the zone is named after it.
• Sent back: who sent it back and their note, if they wrote one, with an Open and edit the post button.

The approved email’s Open the post button opens the post in the composer, which only works while it’s still a draft. Once the approval has published or scheduled it, HIVE shows Could not open draft, so find the post on Posts Overview instead.

You aren’t emailed when a request expires, or when an approval is refused because the post can’t go out. These emails are always sent: they aren’t on the Notifications tab and can’t be turned off - see Emails you can’t turn off.

Removing an approver from Contacts

When an admin removes a contact in Settings → Contacts, every approval link that contact holds stops working at once. Opening it shows This link cannot be opened, without saying why. Nobody is emailed about it - you find out from the banner when you open the post.

Adding the same email address again restores the contact but not their links: send a new request if you still need them. A decision they made before they were removed still stands.

In the audit log

Admins can see each request, each approver’s answer - filed under the contact’s name, marked Contact - and each cancellation in the audit log.

Tracking your posts

Every post has a status, shown as a colour-coded badge:

Status	Colour	Meaning
Draft	Blue	Saved in HIVE and not sent anywhere. It can carry a date, but nothing is scheduled until you publish it
Scheduled	Purple	Queued for a future time - or, on YouTube, already uploaded and held private until the time you chose
Publishing	Teal	Going out right now. A YouTube post stays at Publishing until YouTube has the whole video, which can take hours for a large one - see How YouTube receives your video
Published	Green	HIVE published it - live on the platform unless a chip says otherwise
Partial	Amber	Some platforms published, some didn’t
Failed	Red	Didn’t publish
Deleted	Grey	Removed

A draft that’s waiting for approval shows an amber Approval requested badge in place of Draft, and one that an approver sent back carries a rose Sent back chip beside its badge. Neither is a status of its own - see Sending a post for approval.

• Editing is available while a post is Scheduled, in the Edit Scheduled Post dialog. Once it’s published, it can no longer be edited. A draft is edited in the composer instead - see Drafts.
  • If you change the publish time, the new time has to be in the future. A time that has already passed is refused with “That publish time has already passed. Pick a time in the future.”
  • On a post that went to several platforms, a new caption, time or setting reaches only the channels still waiting to go out. A channel that has already published, failed or been deleted keeps what it had.
  • A new video uploads as soon as you add it, with its progress on the tile, and is checked against the post’s platform with the same limits as in the composer. Update Post stays greyed out until the upload has finished and the video fits, and the dialog says “Your video is still uploading. You can update the post when it finishes.” Closing the dialog stops the upload. HIVE also checks the video already on the post when you update it, so a post whose video is outside its platform’s limits can’t be updated until you replace the video - see Videos.
  • A scheduled YouTube post has no Edit button. The video is already on YouTube, so its title and caption can’t be changed from HIVE. Change them in YouTube Studio.
• The Social Media Calendar below the composer has Year, Week, Month, and List views, colour-coded by the same statuses, so you can see what’s going out and when. Each view carries a status legend, split into a Posts group (the statuses above) and an Events group (planning statuses) - the two vocabularies share some words but mean different things. Where the words match they share a colour too, so read the group heading rather than the colour to tell a post from an event. See External calendar.
• Preview: open a post to preview it. A draft is the exception: selecting a draft card on Posts Overview, or a draft on a calendar, opens it in the composer instead. Before it’s published you see a platform-faithful phone preview of how it will look on each platform, with the caption exactly as HIVE will send it - plain text, your line breaks kept. Once it’s published, the preview shows the post’s detail (media, caption, status and engagement stats) with its conversation beside it. See Unified inbox.
• Open it on the platform: a published post carries a link to the original, labelled with the platform’s name. It sits in the preview’s header, and on the latest-posts rows on the External home. Selecting it opens the post on the platform in a new tab. A YouTube post that isn’t publicly viewable yet - scheduled, cancelled, private or unlisted - carries a chip instead of a link, and no engagement figures.
• Engagement figures: a published post shows its likes, comments and views on its card and in its preview where HIVE has a figure, and its shares for TikTok and LinkedIn posts. On LinkedIn, views are impressions and shares are reposts, LinkedIn’s own words, and hovering a figure says which it is. LinkedIn’s impressions and reposts count organic activity only, so the paid reach of a sponsored post isn’t included. HIVE refreshes a post’s figures in the background once they’re about 15 minutes old and your posts are open in HIVE, so they can trail the platform a little.

What the platform did with your post

Publishing from HIVE and the post being live on the platform aren’t always the same moment. TikTok issues its link later, so a published TikTok post can sit for a while with nothing to open. YouTube receives a scheduled video in the background as soon as you schedule the post, and holds it private until the time you chose. Rather than leaving you to guess, HIVE shows a short chip saying where the post actually stands:

Chip	What it means
Link pending	Published. TikTok hasn’t issued a link yet - the link appears here shortly.
Waiting in your TikTok inbox	Not published. TikTok put the post in your inbox in the TikTok app, and it stays there until you open the app and post it yourself.
Private on TikTok	Published with a privacy setting other than public, so TikTok issues no shareable link. It’s live for the audience you chose.
Rejected by TikTok	TikTok accepted the upload and then rejected it during its own review. There’s no link and nothing to open.
Media not received	TikTok couldn’t download the images or video, so the post was never published. Nothing was reviewed or refused. Publishing it again usually works.
Media not accepted	TikTok did look at the file and wouldn’t take it, because it falls outside their limits on format, size, length or frame rate. Publishing the same file again won’t help.
Not confirmed by TikTok	TikTok accepted the post but never confirmed whether it went live, and HIVE stopped checking after 48 hours. Open the TikTok app to see whether it’s there.
Not published by TikTok	The publish was stopped before TikTok finished with it - the TikTok connection was removed, or the publish was cancelled. Nothing was refused, and where there’s a reason it’s shown under the chip.
Not published by TikTok	TikTok didn’t publish the post and gave no reason HIVE recognises. Where TikTok did give a reason it’s shown under the chip; otherwise open the TikTok app to check whether it’s there.
No link available	The post is live on TikTok, but TikTok returned no link HIVE could store, so there’s nothing to open.
No link available	TikTok issued no link for the post, and HIVE can’t tell why.
Scheduled on YouTube	This video is uploaded and set to publish on YouTube at the time you chose. You can cancel the schedule here, or change it in YouTube Studio.
Private on YouTube	This video’s privacy setting on YouTube means it isn’t visible to everyone. You can change it in YouTube Studio.

Hover a chip for the full explanation.

Two labels appear twice, and that’s deliberate. Not published by TikTok and No link available each cover two situations that HIVE can tell apart but that need the same short label. The chip is the same; the explanation behind it isn’t, so hover to see which one applies to your post.

A TikTok chip stands in place of a link; a YouTube chip can sit beside one. For TikTok the chip stands in for a link that isn’t there, and once TikTok issues one the link replaces the chip. The two YouTube chips work differently: a scheduled video already has a working link, so the chip sits next to it and says what YouTube is doing with the post. Where there’s nothing for anyone else to open at all - a video that’s still private has no public page - the chip takes the link’s place and the engagement figures are hidden too.

Posts with nothing to report show no chip at all, which is the overwhelming majority of them.

Cancelling a scheduled YouTube post

A scheduled YouTube post isn’t waiting in HIVE. HIVE starts sending the video to YouTube as soon as you schedule the post, keeps it private, and tells YouTube the time to make it public. While YouTube is still receiving the video, the post shows Publishing - see How YouTube receives your video. Once YouTube has all of it, the post shows as Scheduled with a Scheduled on YouTube chip, even though the video is already on YouTube.

Cancel schedule stops it going public without throwing the upload away.

• Open the post to preview it. Cancel schedule sits beside Delete in the preview footer. It’s an Editor action.
• What happens: the publish time is removed. The video stays on YouTube as a private video, and nothing is deleted. You’ll find it in YouTube Studio. Its other settings, such as the licence and whether embedding is allowed, are left as they were.
• Afterwards the badge changes from purple Scheduled to green Published - HIVE did publish the video, it’s simply private now - and the chip changes to Private on YouTube. Nothing else about the post changes.
• It’s offered on YouTube posts only, once YouTube has the whole video and while it’s still waiting to go public, and only for posts HIVE published. An imported post isn’t HIVE’s to change. While the post still shows Publishing there’s no schedule to cancel yet: deleting the post stops the upload - see Deleting a post.
• In the last two minutes before the publish time it’s shown greyed out rather than removed, with the reason when you hover it. That close, HIVE can’t be sure YouTube hasn’t already made the video public, and cancelling one that’s gone live would take it back down. Use YouTube Studio if you’re inside that window.

If HIVE can’t carry the cancellation through, it says so and nothing changes. The cases you’re most likely to meet: the YouTube account for the post has been disconnected, so HIVE can no longer reach the video; the schedule was already cancelled; or YouTube has already published it. If the message says nothing changed, take it literally - the post is still set to publish at its scheduled time.

HIVE can't set a new publish time afterwards

Cancelling is one-way. HIVE can remove a scheduled publish time but it can’t give the video a new one, so a cancelled post can’t simply be re-scheduled from HIVE.

To publish it later you have two options: set a publish time on the video in YouTube Studio, or compose the post again in HIVE and upload the video a second time.

If what you want is a different time rather than no time at all, change it in YouTube Studio and leave the schedule in place - don’t cancel first.

Deleting a post

Delete doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere, so the confirmation tells you what will happen before you confirm.

What you’re deleting	What happens	Why
A post HIVE published to Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube	Removed from HIVE, and deleted from the platform	-
A post HIVE published to TikTok or Instagram	Removed from HIVE only	Neither platform lets HIVE delete posts. Delete it in their app as well.
An imported post	Removed from HIVE only	HIVE didn’t publish it, so the original isn’t HIVE’s to delete. It stays live on the platform.
A YouTube post that has never been public - scheduled, cancelled, or uploaded as private or unlisted	Removed from HIVE, and the uploaded video is permanently deleted from YouTube	The video is already on YouTube and it can’t be recovered once deleted. For a post still waiting to publish, Cancel schedule stops it going out and keeps the video.
A YouTube post still showing Publishing	Removed from HIVE only, and HIVE stops sending the video within about a minute	YouTube doesn’t have the whole video yet. If it finishes receiving it in that minute, the video stays on YouTube, so check YouTube Studio.
A draft or a post still waiting to go out	Removed from HIVE only	Nothing has reached a platform yet.

Each platform is its own post in HIVE, so you delete a scheduled or published post one platform at a time, and the confirmation names the one platform it’s about.

A draft is the exception. Deleting any one of its cards - on Posts Overview or on a calendar - deletes the whole draft, on every channel. The confirmation says so: “This is a draft, so deleting it removes the whole draft and every channel saved with it, not just this one. You’ll still see it in Posts as deleted.” If the draft is waiting for approval, deleting it also withdraws the request and emails the approvers - see Cancelling a request.

The two "HIVE only" rows are not the same thing

They look identical and they happen for opposite reasons. TikTok and Instagram are a limit: HIVE would delete the post if those platforms allowed it, so there’s cleanup left for you. An imported post is a choice: HIVE never published it, so deleting your original isn’t HIVE’s to do, and you shouldn’t need to do anything else.

Imported posts

HIVE also brings in the posts you published outside HIVE, straight on the platform. Your planner, calendar and post list then show everything that went out, not only what HIVE sent.

• Nothing to switch on. Once an admin connects an account, HIVE imports its posts on its own.
• Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok are imported. YouTube isn’t available - videos published outside HIVE aren’t brought in.
• What comes in: the caption, the media, the post’s own engagement stats, and a link back to the original. For TikTok, the media is the post’s cover image rather than the video or the photo slides.
• Clearly marked. An imported post carries an Imported from … badge beside its platform indicator, so it’s never mistaken for something HIVE published.
• Deleting one removes it from HIVE only - the original stays live on the platform, and the confirmation tells you so.

When imported posts show up

• Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are checked every hour.
• TikTok works differently. HIVE pulls your full public history within a minute of the account being connected, then checks once a day after that - so a post you publish in the TikTok app can take up to a day to appear in HIVE.
• TikTok imports public posts only. A post that isn’t public never appears, however far back HIVE looks.

Limits and known behaviours

• Media: a Post takes up to 10 images (JPG, JPEG, PNG or GIF); a Reel or Story takes a single video (or, for a Story, a single image).
• Videos can be up to 256 GB as MP4, MOV or WebM, or 512 MB in another format, within each platform’s own size, length and file-type limits. HIVE checks those in the composer, when you save, publish or update a post, and again when a scheduled post goes out - see Video limits by platform.
• Instagram aspect ratio is checked before you publish. Media that’s outside what Instagram accepts is flagged - clearly out-of-range files are blocked, and borderline ones get a heads-up about cropping.
• YouTube needs a Title (up to 100 characters) and a privacy choice before it will publish, both set in YouTube Settings on the post. The privacy list, Who can view this video, offers Public, Unlisted and Private, and HIVE doesn’t choose one for you.
• TikTok needs a privacy choice before it will publish, set in TikTok Settings on the post. A TikTok Post takes images only - a video in the set is refused, and belongs in a Reel.
• Captions over the limit of your strictest selected platform are flagged by the counter, but nothing stops the publish - and a caption past TikTok’s own ceiling (4,000 characters on a Post, 2,200 on a Reel) goes out cut short, ending in ”…”.
• Publishing to several platforms at once: if some succeed and some don’t, HIVE reports a Partially Published result so you can see which platforms went out.
• A platform still going out after about 40 seconds isn’t reported as a failure. The composer clears, so the post can’t be sent twice, and says the post is being published, for example “Your post is being published on LinkedIn. Its status in Posts updates when each platform finishes.” (or Partially Published, naming the platforms that failed and those still publishing). If a platform then fails, HIVE sends its post-failure email.