Feed Preview shows your post inside a pixel-accurate mock of the destination platform — its real profile grid, home timeline, or video feed — so you can see exactly how the post will read before you schedule it. It’s available on every plan, including Free.
What Feed Preview is
Every post composer in Viraly shows a Post Preview of how your post will look as a single item. Feed Preview is a second mode that renders the same post inside the surrounding context of the destination platform — your Instagram profile grid, your TikTok page, the X home timeline, the LinkedIn feed, and so on.
Each platform has its own layout paradigm (grids, timelines, masonry boards, video feeds) and Feed Preview clones that layout using the platform’s exact colors, fonts, spacing, and icons. Your composed post sits in the middle of that context with a subtle brand-colored indicator so you can spot it at a glance.
How to open it
- Open the post composer and pick a channel that supports Feed Preview (see the list below)
- Look at the preview panel on the right (or tap the eye icon on mobile to open it)
- In the preview header, you’ll see a small Post / Feed segmented toggle
- Tap Feed to switch modes
Your choice is remembered across sessions. Switching to a channel that doesn’t support Feed Preview will automatically fall back to Post Preview for that channel and re-engage Feed when you switch back.
Supported platforms
Feed Preview supports every connected platform in Viraly:
- Grid-style (3-column profile grid with your real recent posts around your composed one): Instagram, TikTok
- Masonry-style (2-column variable-height board): Pinterest
- Timeline-style (scrolling home feed with dummy posts above and below your composed post): X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook
- Video feed (home-page video cards with thumbnails, durations, and channel metadata): YouTube
Instagram Stories, Reels Story format, and other ephemeral formats keep using Post Preview — the feed paradigm doesn’t apply to them.
What’s real vs what’s a placeholder
Feed Preview blends your real content with placeholder content to produce a realistic view without hitting rate limits at composer-open time:
- Your composed post (the highlighted one): always real — captions, media, everything exactly as you typed/uploaded it
- Your profile avatar, handle, and display name: real, pulled from the connected channel
- Profile stats (followers, following, likes, verified badge): real whenever the source platform caches them — see the per-platform detail below
- Grid / masonry tiles around your composed post: your real recent published posts whenever Viraly has at least 6 cached; otherwise a curated photo set fills the gaps so brand-new accounts don’t see an empty grid
- Timeline rows around your composed post: always static “other user” dummies, because those represent other people’s posts in a home feed — we don’t have (and wouldn’t want) access to your real home-feed content
Per-platform detail
Profile scaffold with avatar, bio, and 3-column 3:4 grid (the 2025 aspect-ratio update). Tabs for Posts / Reels / Tagged. Composing a Reel opens the Reels tab; composing a regular post opens the Posts tab. Your real post count is accurate; your real follower count is pulled live from the Instagram Graph API (cached for an hour).
TikTok
Profile scaffold with 96px avatar, Followers / Following / Likes stat row, Follow + Message buttons, and a 3-column grid with your real video covers. Followers, following, likes, and the verified badge all come from TikTok’s channel-metrics cache and reflect your actual numbers.
2-column masonry board mirroring Pinterest’s mobile home feed. Variable pin aspect ratios, the red brand outline on your pinned post. Your real pin covers fill in whenever available.
X (Twitter)
Full home-timeline chrome: top nav with the X logo, For you / Following tabs, bottom tab bar, and tweet rows with proper 40px avatars, blue or gold verification badges, and the exact engagement-row icons (reply, repost, like, views, bookmark, share) with count formatting. Your composed tweet is highlighted with a subtle blue tint.
Home feed with 56px top nav (pill search, messages icon), 48px-avatar post cards with name, connection-degree chip, headline, time-ago, globe icon, and the six reaction glyphs (like, celebrate, love, insightful, support, funny) rendered as overlapping circles with LinkedIn’s exact brand hexes. Action row with Like / Comment / Repost / Send.
Threads
Dark-mode-first timeline (Threads’ default) with monochrome chrome. Post rows show name, handle on a second line, body text, and the four-icon engagement row (like, reply, repost, share). No view counters — Threads doesn’t display them on individual posts.
Bluesky
Home timeline with the Bluesky butterfly logo, Following / Discover tabs, and 4-tab bottom bar. Post rows use Bluesky’s signature handle format (@user.bsky.social), 42px avatars, and the platform’s accent colors for the like heart and repost cycle.
Mastodon
Dark-themed mastodon.social layout with rounded-square avatars (Mastodon’s distinctive look), federated handle format @user@instance.social, and support for content-warning spoilers. Engagement row includes Mastodon-specific actions: Boost (two-chevron glyph), Favorite (star), Bookmark, plus Reply and Share.
Full home feed with Stories strip at the top, 40px-avatar feed cards with the standard reaction stack (Like, Love, Care), and the Like / Comment / Share action row. Your page’s follower count pulls from Facebook’s channel metrics when available.
YouTube
Home-feed-style video cards with 16:9 thumbnails, bottom-right duration pills, channel avatar + video title + views/time-ago metadata, and the familiar chips bar (All / Music / Gaming / Live / Mixes / Podcasts / News) under the top nav. Your composed video gets a red glow ring on its thumbnail.
Tips
- Test your aspect ratios: Instagram’s 3:4 grid is unforgiving — an image that looked fine in Post Preview might crop awkwardly as a profile tile. Flip to Feed Preview to check.
- Reality-check caption length: platforms truncate at different thresholds. Feed Preview shows the truncation exactly as each platform applies it.
- Plan a grid aesthetic: when composing for Instagram or Pinterest, Feed Preview shows the new post alongside your recent ones — useful for keeping a cohesive visual style.
- Preview is mobile-sized: 328px wide, matching a typical phone screen. That’s how most people will actually see the post. Desktop surfaces will have more horizontal space.