Courtney Seiter

A collection of posts by Courtney Seiter

A collection of 187 posts by Courtney Seiter - Page 7

Self-ImprovementAug 14, 2014
6 Ways My Brain Stops Me From Creating – And How I’m Fighting Back

I have a lot of ideas in my head. And for the most part, that’s where they used to stay. In my head. Where other people couldn’t see them, interact with them or build upon them. Where they were safe and untested and uncriticized. All mine. Sure, I’ve created some . Some might say I’ve created plenty. But that’s only because they can’t see what I’m not creating. For example, this very post sat dormant for at least a month while I pondered, waited and

ResearchAug 13, 2014
7 Social Media Psychology Studies That Will Make Your Marketing Smarter

One of my favorite things about social media is that it’s still such a young and new form of communication. It feels too early to take anything as a given, so we’re all experimenting, testing and learning together. Every day seems to bring exciting new studies as research shows us more about how social media is changing the way we relate to one another, share information and even form our identities. I’ve been collecting a few of these studies and thinking over how they might relate to making

ReportsAug 12, 2014
Buffer’s July Marketing Report: 35,000+ Subscribers, A Blog Redesign and Lots More

July was a month of big changes and big growth for Buffer’s small but mighty team of Content Crafters. Our blogs got a fresh new redesign that allows each post to shine a bit brighter and load faster, and the changes resulted in a big increase in traffic across the board. A few milestones: On the Buffer Social blog, we reached 35,000 total email subscribers, while Buffer Open saw pageviews topping 100,000 for the first time. Let’s take a closer look with a dive into the numbers! July stats fo

Buffer NewsAug 7, 2014
Introducing Groups: The Easiest Way to Manage All Your Social Media Accounts With One Click

Social media managers work pretty darn hard. You’re keeping up with all the latest changes to Facebook and Twitter (and LinkedIn and Pinterest and Instagram). You’re checking out emerging new platforms. You’re posting links, answering questions, and engaging communities all over the place. And when you’re doing all this with an ever-growing list of social media accounts, things can get kinda crazy. We wondered if we could make things a little easier for all you hard-working, multi-tasking soc

How We Do Customer Support at Buffer

“Customer support” is something of a magic phrase at Buffer. Say it to anyone—from Happiness Heroes to Hackers and beyond—and watch eyes light up. Simply put, it’s one of our very favorite things to talk about and improve upon every day. Customer support is baked into everything we do—Buffer’s vision is to build a super-useful social media management tool with amazing support for everyone we come into contact with. So what does Buffer’s Happiness team do, exactly? And how do we keep customer

Self-ImprovementJul 24, 2014
Why Sleep Matters So Much and 15 Things We’re Improving This Week

We’ve talked in the past about how often exercise and reading pop up on our self-improvement lists at Buffer. Another element you’ll almost always spot on our goals list is sleep—getting more sleep, getting to sleep earlier or getting into a better sleep routine are a few popular variations on the theme. Curious why sleep matters so m

How We Stay in Sync as a Distributed Team: The Buffer Pair Call

Most companies have meetings of some sort. Many startups have daily standups . As a fully remote and distributed team with members in a variety of countries, continents and time zones , Buffer meetings have to be a bit diff

Self-ImprovementJul 22, 2014
My Month of Minimalism: How I Decluttered My Life

I have a lot of stuff. That’s not really meant to be a brag—far from it. More just a statement of fact. Amazon deliveries arrive all the time. Knickknacks and little gifts and random tchotzkes take over spaces. I can’t stop buying art. And plants. And why do I have so many nail polishes? It’s one of life’s mysteries. You probably have a lot of stuff, too. When did life start to feel so overstuffed? When I discovered The Minimalists recently via an interview

Self-ImprovementJul 17, 2014
The Power of Reading (And 16 Things We’re Improving This Week)

Escaping into a good book is one of my favorite activities, so I could hardly believe it when I learned that working at Buffer meant a free Kindle and the license to grab any book I wanted, anytime! (In fact, I snagged two today.) You’ll notice that reading shows up again and again in our improvements—fiction and non-fiction, business books and pleasure reading. Why? Because we know that reading makes us better writers [http://blog.bufferap

The Simple Reason We Share Administrative Tasks Throughout the Whole Team

Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. Earlier this year, Buffer had a job opening for a position we (at the time) called “Life Saver.” That person, we thought, was going to work in lots of different and important areas to help keep Buffer running smoothly—things like helping to plan our multiple annual retrea

Every Step Counts: 13 Things We’re Working on Improving This Week

We talk about “steps” a lot at Buffer-how many we’re aiming for every day, how many we’re getting and how we’re making changes to get more. That’s because each member of the Buffer team gets a free Jawbone UP (among other neat perks) when they join us full time. Why? Not only is general self-improvement part of Buffer’s core culture, exercise pops up quite often as a specific form of self-improvement for many of us. Here’s how Buffer founder Joel puts it: In the last three years, I’ve gone fr

ReportsJul 9, 2014
30,000+ Subscribers, 5 Times More Curation and a New Newsletter: Buffer’s June Content Marketing Report

June was a month of great content, curation and experiments at Buffer. We saw an amazing milestone for us Content Crafters as we made a big push toward growing our email subscriber numbers and rounded 30,000 subscribers, topping out at the end of this month with 30,289 folks on our Buffer Social mailing list! (For everyone who’s getting our emails , thanks! A

Improving, Even On-the-Go: 16 Things The Buffer Team is Working On This Week

Travel is a high priority for lots of us at Buffer—it’s a bit ingrained in our culture, and it’s always a great experience to see the world and broaden your geographic and cultural horizons. Travel is also the time where it can become a challenge to hang onto good routines, habits and improvement goals. With a number of Buffer team members on the move these past few weeks, it’s inspiring to see core habits that stay strong regardless of where in the world we are—and it’s fun to watch new goal

OpenJul 1, 2014
Why No One Will Steal Your Startup Idea

When you’ve got a great idea , share it. It might seem like counterintuitive advice, but that’s the philosophy that’s building Buffer: An emphasis on transparency and openness around almost everyt

18 Things We’re Improving This Week

Not only do we strive for personal improvement every week at Buffer, those of us who work on the blog here get the opportunity to dig into the science of self-improvement in many different areas. Here are a few resources for improvements that might be on your list: • 6 Research-Tested Ways to Improve Your Memory • 8 Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine • 6 Ways I’ve Improved My Writing In the Past 6 Months • 8 Scientifically Proven Ways to Maximize Your Lunch Break • 6 Ways to Improve Your Will

Why Buffer Perks Are Different Than Typical Startup Perks

Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. Being a distributed team as Buffer is has a few special challenges, many of which we’ve talked about here on the blog. :) Working out our office perks isn’t one we’ve mentioned yet—but come to think of it, it is a little tricky. Typical startup perks are pretty much off the table. Long-distance Ping Pong is kinda tough. And Buffer doesn’t share a kitche

Why We Work on Self-Improvement Weekly: It’s a Lifelong Process

If you’ve ever tried to work on a few different elements of your life at once (say, exercise, eating well and learning a new language) you’ve probably found that it’s a delicate balancing act. Some days you’re really rocking one category while the other takes a backseat. Some days all are making incremental progress. And some amazing days, you make big strides in all your areas of change. Self-improvement can be like one big game of Whack-a-Mole that way. As you read over our improvements wee

The Simple Blueprint for Social Media Monitoring: 10 Unique Insights to Look For

One of the most fascinating things about social media is its ability to clue you in to things that you might otherwise have had no idea even existed—there are tons of conversations, communities, articles and so much more just waiting to be discovered online. The trick is: How do you find all of the information online that’s relevant to you and your interests and bring it back in such a way that you can make use of it all? The answer, for many brands and individuals, is social media monitoring.

Running, Meditating, Language-Learning and Even More Goals: The Buffer Team’s Weekly Improvements

Last week we introduced y’all to Buffer’s weekly improvements on the blog for the first time. This week we’ll dive right in to see what each Buffer team member is working on! (We love chatting about each other’s improvements, too. See all of our comments here.) We love hearing your improvement goals, too—tell us about them in the comments so we can cheer you on and learn from your goals! Here’s what we’re working on this week: Niel– I ran my first 10km (trail run!) the past Sunday which was

OpenJun 10, 2014
What Remote Working Means & The Tools We Use at Buffer

Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. Being part of a remote team has special opportunities and challenges. In this video, hear Joel and Leo talk about how Buffer started remote working, as well as all the different tools we use at Buffer to work closely together even though we’re physically far apart. Want a little more info on those tools? Here’s a deeper look at some of the products and servic

ReportsJun 10, 2014
The May Buffer Content Marketing Report: 23,629 Email Subscribers, 679,021 Uniques

What an interesting month May was for Buffer content marketing! We did a lot of learning, brainstorming and evaluating this month (in addition to writing a lot of content!) As a result, some of these metrics may look different when we do this report next month. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a dive into the numbers! Buffer’s social media blog Our biggest content “hit” this month was 53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Posts, followed by The Big List of The 61 Be

19 Improvements the Buffer Team is Working on This Week

The entire Buffer team starts each week fresh with new goals—both work and personal. One of Buffer’s 10 values is a focus on self-improvement, and it’s a lot of fun to share our personal improvement goals and cheer each other on each week with our daily pair calls. Improvement goals can be almost anything, from exercise and eating better to home projects to learning a new language to listening more. Since we all receive free Kindles (and Kindle books) and a Jawbone UP, there’s generally a lot

Case StudiesJun 4, 2014
Case Study: How About.com Saves Hours Every Day on Social Media With Buffer

It’s a great problem to have—tons of content and lots of social media channels to connect to your audience. That’s where About.com—one of the most visited sites on the Internet—found itself. Team members wanted a way to streamline their social media publishing process so they could have more time to connect with fans and build relationships with users. Buffer’s simple scheduling and intuitive team management quickly earned it an important place in the About.com team’s workflow. Now members wor

OpenJun 3, 2014
Why Buffer Has Transparent Salaries and How The Open Salary Formula Works

We’ve updated our transparent salary formula since this post originally was published. Learn more about the latest formula and see all the team’s current salaries here . Joel and Leo discuss one of the best-known elements of Buffer’s culture—transparent salaries—in this Founder Chat. Here are a few more resources for additional information on Buffer’s transparent salaries: • Take