---
title: "Getting Started"
description: "Get up and running with Octopost in under 5 minutes"
---

## What is Octopost?

Octopost is a cross-posting tool that lets you write once and publish everywhere. Connect your social media accounts, write your post, pick your platforms, and hit publish. One post goes out to all of them at the same time.

We support **12 platforms** right now:

- **Social networks** -- Twitter/X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Threads
- **Visual platforms** -- Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube
- **Team channels** -- Discord, Slack, Telegram

No more copying and pasting the same thing into ten different apps. No more forgetting to post on one platform because you got distracted halfway through.

## Creating your account

Head to [octopost.ink](https://octopost.ink) and sign up with your email. We will send you a magic link -- click it, and you are in. No passwords to remember.

Once you are logged in, you will land on your dashboard. It will look a little empty at first, which is expected. The first thing you will want to do is connect a social account.

## Connecting your first social account

From the dashboard, click **Connect Account** and pick a platform. What happens next depends on the platform:

- **Most platforms** (Twitter, LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube) use OAuth. You will be redirected to that platform's login page, where you grant Octopost permission to post on your behalf. Approve it, and you are sent back to Octopost with the account connected.
- **Bluesky** uses app passwords instead of OAuth. Go to your Bluesky settings, generate an app password, then enter your handle and that app password in Octopost. We use these to create a session with the AT Protocol.
- **Mastodon** is instance-based. You will need to enter your instance URL (like `mastodon.social` or `hachyderm.io`) first, and then we walk you through OAuth on that specific instance.
- **Discord, Slack, and Telegram** use webhooks or bot tokens. We will walk you through setting those up -- it only takes a minute.

For a detailed walkthrough of each platform, see [Connecting Accounts](/docs/connecting-accounts).

## Creating your first post

Once you have at least one account connected, you are ready to post.

1. Click **New Post** from the dashboard.
2. Write your content in the editor. You will see a live character count that updates based on which platforms you have selected (280 for Twitter, 300 for Bluesky, 500 for Mastodon, and so on).
3. Select the platforms you want to publish to. You can pick them individually or use a preset to select a group at once.
4. Attach any images or videos if you want.
5. Click **Publish** to send it out immediately, or **Schedule** to pick a date and time.

That is it. Octopost handles the rest -- formatting for each platform, uploading media, dealing with API quirks.

## Scheduling vs publishing immediately

You have two options when your post is ready:

- **Publish now** -- Sends the post to all selected platforms right away. You will see the status of each platform in real time as they go out.
- **Schedule for later** -- Pick a date and time, and Octopost will publish it for you automatically. The scheduler checks every minute, so your post will go out within 60 seconds of the scheduled time. If a platform fails, we retry up to 3 times with increasing delays (1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes).

Scheduled posts show up on your content calendar, so you can see everything you have queued up at a glance.

## Using presets for quick platform selection

If you find yourself always posting to the same set of platforms, presets will save you a lot of clicking.

Octopost comes with a few built-in presets:

- **All Platforms** -- Every connected platform at once
- **Short-form Video** -- TikTok, Instagram, YouTube
- **Professional** -- LinkedIn and Twitter
- **Decentralized Social** -- Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads
- **Text-first** -- Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads

You can also create your own custom presets with whatever combination of platforms you like. Set one as your default, and it will be pre-selected every time you start a new post.

For more on presets, including the cross-link feature, see [Publishing Presets](/docs/presets).

## Next steps

- [Connect all your accounts](/docs/connecting-accounts) to get the most out of cross-posting
- [Learn about scheduling](/docs/scheduling) to plan your content ahead of time
- [Set up presets](/docs/presets) to streamline your workflow