3x3 grid planner

What planning means here

Cutting an image into nine is easy. Deciding whether it should be cut into nine is the part worth slowing down for, because once the set is published the only way to change it is deleting posts. The mock-up under the tiles shows the grid the way a profile shows it — cropped square, same gaps — and most of the problems people write in about are visible there before anything is uploaded.

The four checks

• Does every tile hold up alone? Nine people will meet these as nine separate posts. A tile thats nothing but wall is a wasted one.
• Do faces survive the cuts? A face split down the middle looks fine in the grid and looks like an error everywhere else.
• Is the middle square doing something? Its the one people look at first and the one that most often ends up as background.
• Is the source big enough? Under 3240 px and every tile gets scaled up on upload.

The order, one more time

A profile fills from the top left with your newest post, so a 3×3 is published in reverse — bottom right first, top left last. The tiles here are numbered in publishing order rather than reading order.

When not to do this

If the picture is the thing you want people to see, post a carousel instead. It reaches everyone scrolling past rather than only profile visitors, it costs one slot, and nothing about it can break. A grid is worth nine posts when the profile itself is the point — a launch, a rebrand, an event.

How to plan a 3x3 grid

1. Add a large, roughly square photo.
2. Drag and zoom until all nine squares have something in them.
3. Look at the mock-up and check every square individually.
4. Write nine captions, then publish tile 1 through tile 9 in one session.

Questions