Your eyes can get so tired from reading so many lines of web copy, sitting in front of a computer screen all day, while also maintaining leisure activity on your smaller phone screen in your downtime. With all the heavy lifting they have to do these days, sometimes even several pairs of eyes can miss errors.

Maybe you hit "post" before putting the link in your caption, or you notice a word is misspelled just a moment too late. Don't panic (yet) – in this post I'll go over how you can edit your social media posts after they've been published.

But worth noting, editing posts after they've been published isn't available on all platforms, and there are restrictions as to what, exactly, you can edit.

Here are the post editing capabilities on some of the main social platforms.

Facebook

On Facebook, you're able to edit post captions, but you can't change images and videos.

If you attached the wrong photo or video to your post, you'll have to delete the whole thing and start again, but if you just missed a comma or misspelled a word, or even if you have to tag another brand, you can fix these elements quite easily. And worth noting, post editing is available in Facebook's Page Manager app also.

One thing to keep in mind when editing posts on Facebook is that edits are visible, and can be made by any Page admin. The same also applies for changes made before the post is published.

Each post's edit history is also public, so your followers and Page visitors will be able to see them if they go looking.

And one more thing to keep in mind is that Facebook posts which have been boosted, or are part of an ad campaign, cannot be edited.

To edit a post, simply tap/click on the three dots in the top right of the post window and select 'Edit Post'. once you've made the required changes, select 'Save' and that's it.

Facebook post editing

Extra Tip

If you edit your post in Facebook's Pages app, you can add more photos to your post. Using this, you can actually change the post image - it's possible to upload an extra photo to a post, save it, then go back into editing mode and deleted the original image.

Twitter

Unfortunately - as has been widely publicized and discussed - there's no edit tweets option at the moment.

Twitter had, at times, hinted at the possibility of an editing option, with the most recent discussion revolving around an 'editing window' of around five minutes after posting your original tweet. But no progress has been reported on this front as yet.

If you make an error in a tweet, you need to delete it and start over again.

Instagram

On Instagram, just like on Facebook, you can't switch a photo or video after you've published your post. But if you don't like your caption, you can change it, and you can also add or change any location tag, as well as add or delete account tags on the post. You can also add or edit your alt text tags.

As of right now, you can only edit your Instagram captions within the app on your mobile device.

To edit your Instagram posts:

  1. Navigate to your post
  2. Click the 3 dots on the top right of your post
  3. Hit the "Edit" button
  4. Go ahead and edit your caption, change your location, add account tags to your photo or video
  5. Hit "Done" on the upper right-hand side

Instagram post editing

Pinterest

On Pinterest, your published Pin photo, video or carousel can't be swapped out. What you can edit are your Pin's board, section, title, description and the link your Pin goes to. You can even edit on the go via the Pinterest app.

To edit your Pinterest Pin:

  1. Go to your Pin
  2. Click the pencil icon on the upper left-hand side
  3. Edit the sections you'd like to change
  4. Hit "Save"

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, you have the capacity to edit both Company Page and personal profile updates - but as with other networks, the image or video you use on your post cannot be edited. You can only change the text elements.

To edit your posts on LinkedIn

  1. Find your post
  2. Click the three dots on the upper right-hand side of your update
  3. Edit your caption, add or remove hashtags and links

If you published a link post, you'll have to delete the post, as simply changing the link in the caption won't refresh the original.

Hopefully this helps to clear up any confusion about editing your already published social media posts. For the most part, the visual elements of your posts aren't interchangeable, but text fields are.

It's worth getting familiar with each social media network, and its capabilities in this respect, so that you know the required steps to take if any mistakes do occur. Then you'll be able to clean up your errors quickly and easily, and maintain a more professional looking feed.

A version of this post was first published on Dhariana Lozano's blog.