Buffer: Social Media Dashboard for Business

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Buffer

Mastering social media platforms is just one part of the job; managing multiple social media accounts is another. And this is where Buffer comes into play.

Introducing Buffer, the smarter way to share updates on social media.
The company started in October 2010 and on September 19, 2014, Leo Widrich announced to the world that they had hit the 1,000,000 user mark.

Now, they are capping approximately $21.36 million in revenue per year and let’s face it, we know how powerful Buffer is, right?

Regardless of my social media marketing strategy, Buffer is always a key ingredient for my success on social. Long story short, Buffer is NOT your average social media dashboard.

Having Buffer as a social media tool is a God-given blessing but you need a good social media strategy.

Yes, Buffer doesn’t plan any social media marketing strategy for you.

It works hand in hand with you, ensuring that all your social media updates are delivered at the right time when it matters most.

So, if I would take a peek into your mind, you should be wondering:

  1. How do you use Buffer for social media scheduling?
  2. What makes Buffer different from other social media tools?
  3. How to use Buffer to the best of its ability?
  4. Is Buffer app seriously that good?

Yup, those are what you’ll discover in this blog post. Buckle up and let me take you for a ride.

*PS You may want to bookmark this article for further reference!
The whole Buffer experience – What do you need to know?

1. Creating a free trial account on Buffer

Creating an account is extremely simple with Buffer. You are given the option to sign up using any social media accounts of yours (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) or simply using your email.

And if you are wondering, anyone can create a Buffer account without a credit card.

2. Integrating social media accounts with Buffer

Buffer allows you to connect with several major social media platforms such as:

  1. Twitter
  2. Facebook (profile, groups and company pages)
  3. LinkedIn (profile and company pages)
  4. Instagram (personal and company pages)
  5. Pinterest

If you are using a pro account, you can add only 8 account of different social media platform.

If you need more allocations or would love to manage more social media accounts, you can sign up for premium or business plan by Buffer which costs $65 and $99 per month with no contract. With Buffer’s Pro plan, you can manage up to 8 social media accounts at one time and schedule up to 100 posts/updates.

3. Scheduling posts at a specific time using Buffer

One of the most popular (and simple) features in Buffer is post scheduling. After adding social media accounts to Buffer, click on the box and add your post.

Enter the update and hit the bright blue button on the bottom right. You will be given 3 options which are:

  • Share Next
  • Share Now
  • Schedule Post

Select the one that fits your need and you are done.

Pretty simple right?

4. Scheduling a post on a pre-determined time using Buffer

I love Buffer because it helps me to manage multiple social media platforms under one roof. And when it comes to scheduling social media updates, Buffer makes it so simple (and effective)!

If you are using Pro plan on Buffer, you can schedule more pre-determined times and even different posting schedules according to different days of the week.

5. Buffer’s Simple Composer

If you love simplicity in social media marketing, you’re going to love Buffer’s browser extensions. Currently, the browser extensions work on both Firefox and Chrome.

With a click of the button, you can instantly share any content you are currently reading on your Buffer queue; selecting either sharing immediately or schedule for a later time. You can also add it to your own Buffer queue you had pre-determined earlier.

Imagine the power to share an update with all your social media accounts at the same time. Super time saver!

6. Buffer’s Power Scheduler feature

By far, this is my favorite feature on Buffer. I’ve been using Buffer’s simple composer for a good few months and no doubt, it makes my social media marketing pretty straight forward.

With Buffer’s Power Scheduler, I have the ability to share the same content at various times without the hassle!

I could schedule the post to multiple social media account while selecting the specific time and duration with just a few clicks.

7. Setting different time zones for specific social accounts

One of the biggest challenges for me as a social media consultant is that my clients and the targeted audience are located miles away from me, not to forget several time zones away.

And adjusting the publishing time to have the best impact is challenging.

With Buffer, you can simply adjust the time zones with just a click. And if you’re like me (managing over a dozen social accounts), you can opt to set different time zones for different social accounts.

How cool is that?!

The Buffer analytics

Those early adopters of Buffer would definitely appreciate this feature. Buffer analytics offers the following features:

  • Recent updates (within 30 days period)
  • The most … (popular, retweets, favorites, replies, clicks and reach)
  • The least … (popular, retweets, favorites, replies, clicks and reach)
  • Sort by post types (image, links, texts and retweets)
  • Exporting the reports

How would Buffer analytics helps you in social media marketing?

  • Buffer tells you exactly what works and what doesn’t so that you don’t have to crack your mind about it.
  • Plus, the option to even re-buffer the post if it generates that much attractions and engagement or simply because you are happy with it.
  • The ability to sort out the reports makes social media analytics extremely easy and not time-consuming.
  • Buffer’s suggested posts
  • Ever had a time where you totally run out of ideas? Maybe, hitting the writer’s block?
  • Buffer got you covered in this and personally, this is where Buffer really excels as a social media dashboard.

You can read the whole post about it here but here’s a quick recap:

  • You will get 25 suggestions on a daily basis
  • These suggestions can be added into your Buffer queue (how cool is that?)
  • You can sort by topics such as recommended posts, marketing, business and lifehacking

How to use content suggestions by Buffer?

I add them into my own queue, hit the shuffle so that all my updates get jumbled up.

The reason behind this?

I will not be overly promoting my content and giving some worth-reading posts some visibility.

You can call that karma. After all, what goes around — comes around right?

How good is buffer as a social media dashboard?

For me, Buffer is all about simplicity and in social media, simplicity matters the most. As a social media consultant, you are definitely going to face tons of social media challenges in business and managing multiple social media accounts just get tougher.

Buffer is an excellent compliment for both business and leisure purposes. Trust me, if you are not using Buffer as your social media dashboard, you’re losing out something … BIG!

Why don’t you take a test drive and register a free trail account with Buffer? And yes, you can thank me later.

Tell me what you think below.

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14 Responses

  1. Thanks for your complete guideline. You are just doing amazing Job.By reading your this article just got the killers points about Social media marketing. And i have also checked today your others some articles on Social media marketing. To be honest, Have to say that you are the Rock star Social media marketer. Keep sharing your knowledge and give us guideline.

  2. wow! This is an incredible run through. It’s super humbling that you’d share your time with us like this to help share Buffer. I love the way you ran through Buffer and the screenshots you captured, that feels super smooth.

  3. Buffer is one of my favorite social media tools. I use it to market content for all the clients of Blog Engage. It’s an all-in-one platform where you can do almost anything related to social media.

    The free plan does have some limitations and restrictions. However, the paid plans provide a lot of flexibility and room for a lot of customizations.

    Thanks for sharing such a detailed article on Buffer.

  4. Jody Berger says:

    Lot of posts on buffer . i think i have to give it a try . will check this out .

  5. Dylan Yu says:

    Buffer App is an innovation to the way we tweet. I am using buffer app for the past one month and from my experience they are providing valuable tweets which helps us to tweet in a better way. Thanks for sharing your insights!

  6. This is absolutely amazing; something that I have been looking for a while now. Hoot Suite was how I used to schedule tweets, but that was a long tedious process. Since I tend to read most of my RSS in one sitting, I often want to share 3-4 posts at a time.

    Great find!

  7. I have been using Buffer for about a week now and I highly recommend it. I went pro almost immediately.

  8. Thank you very much for all the information provided, by following this I have now added buffer pro in to my blog and now I am using it and it is working really well for the social media integration of any blog. However, as I understand that Buffer only allows couple of the social media accounts like twitter, facebook, google plus, linkedin and app.net but I was wondering if there is any available tool like buffer which would allow the same functionality as buffer for other social medias like pinterest, stumbleupon and all? Is there any tool like buffer for this purpose at all? Please help. Thanks again very much. Cheers!

  9. Chi Estrada says:

    Thanks for your great article. It made me realize that a hashtag is so much more than just a hashtag. I’m going to try using one to find content people are looking for right away. Hope it’ll work out

  10. Gavin Weaver says:

    Great post, full of all the insight that I’m sure half of us really had no clue (i know, i didn’t)

    I believe we all fall short when it comes to hash tags , by trying to go with the ones that are trending, just in the hope that we will bring in new readers, new customers to our site only to realize that, we fall short of that goal.

    Thanks

  11. Congratulations. I have always thought of Twitter as a giant, brain-wasting time suck and I don’t have an account. You have managed to prove me wrong and show me why. Every article on the internet should be as useful. Too bad most are not.

  12. Katy Fry says:

    You are right. All these tools are needed.

    My favorite one is Buffer. I love Buffering articles(yours also). Moreover, I would also like to add Knowem in this list because it lets you find your usernames on different networks.

    I also published a massive list of 112 social media tools. If you like to check it out, I can send you over a link.

    Anyway, keep writing cool stuff.

    Thanks,

  13. Nola Knapp says:

    Definitely a great tool to go on, Buffer. Others are also great as well, Tweriod, not bad.

  14. Awesome article. I just signup with buffer and i really like it.

    I will definitely go for other tools as well as we grow-up.

    I really like this article.

    Thank You for writing this one .

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