Danny Hieber, Ph.D., studies how words spread. A term can start in a tiny group and then, slowly, get repeated hundreds, thousands, even millions of times in different places by different people. Eventually, it becomes part of a language, and nobody remembers where it started.
He promotes his newsletter in the same way.
Danny is the linguist behind Linguistic Discovery, a weekly newsletter about the science and diversity of language. He explains the field to a much larger audience on Substack Notes, Threads, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. He has more than 1 million followers across those platforms, including 320K on Instagram and 217K on TikTok.
"Every time I finish a newsletter issue, I pull out all the interesting tidbits, graphics, examples, quotes, and concepts/terms covered, and turn them into dozens of smaller pieces of content — microposts (Substack Notes, Threads, X, Facebook), carousels (Instagram), and short-form videos (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts)," says Danny.
Each of those pieces ends with a call to action pointing back to the issue it came from: "If you want to learn more about [topic], check out this newsletter issue." Then he schedules the batch in Buffer and lets it go out over the following weeks.
Danny keeps up that many platforms alongside his full-time work as a linguist, which includes working with Indigenous communities to document and revitalize their languages. That's no mean feat, and Buffer is how he manages it.
Buffer as the distribution center
"I think of Buffer like my content distribution center: all my content gets scheduled there, and then Buffer sends it to all my platforms, or notifies me to post," he says.
For the posts that can't go out automatically, Buffer handles most of the work. "Even when Buffer can't post directly for you because a post requires manual features, it still makes the process as quick and painless as possible by handing you everything you need to post when it notifies you — images, text, links, and other info."
He also replies to comments from inside Buffer. "I'm also a huge fan of Buffer's recent Community feature, because now I can manage all my comments in one place."
As a result, Danny rarely needs to open the platforms themselves.
"What I love about Buffer overall is that it saves me from hardly ever having to open the social media apps themselves — hours of distraction and doomscrolling avoided!"
Consistency and peace of mind
"It might seem strange to say, but Buffer has done wonders for my mental health. It frees me from the stress of feeling chained to my content schedule, and the need to check in on my content every day," Danny says.
At any given time, he might have several weeks of content in the queue. "I no longer have to worry about missing a day or two because I trust that Buffer will send the content out for me. It's greatly reduced my feeling of burnout."
"Before using Buffer, my content schedule never felt sustainable. Finally, it's allowed me to be more consistent in my posting, which builds trust with my audience and is rewarded by the algorithms."
His advice to writers still on the fence is about creative freedom rather than efficiency. "Buffer gives you the creative freedom to capture ideas as you have them without worrying about the logistics of scheduling and posting — just throw it in your queue and forget about it."
On using Substack Notes
Danny has been deliberately changing what he posts on Substack Notes. He used to share a lot of news and new research. Now he posts far more of his own ideas.
"I realized that most of my Substack readers follow me not so much for the latest news and research, but for what I have to say about it. My strength as a writer, and the reason people value my newsletter, is my ability to explain and synthesize, not because I'm aggregating links."
Now that he can schedule Notes in Buffer, they go into the same queue as everything else he pulls from an issue.
That queue is about to get more to work with. Danny is in the early stages of a pop linguistics book, and he plans to post much more book-related content over the next year.
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