Guides & Courses - Page 2
A collection of posts on Guided Courses
Ever since we wrote The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Social Media, we’ve been itching to dig deeper into mobile social strategies. After all, the evidence that we’re only growing more addicted to our cell phones is undeniable: * The average user looks at her or his mobile phone up to 221 times a day * 90% of American adults have a mobile phone—and 64% own a smartphone * 60% of social media time is spent on smartphones and tablets * 75% of Twitter users are active on mobile * 38% of Facebook u
You’ve read all the articles and social media blogs, and you’ve heard that you should be on Twitter, you need to be on Facebook, and you’re losing out if you’re not on Pinterest. Is that truly the case? Turns out, most social media experts believe in prudence: that you might miss out on connecting with your true audience if you’re spreading yourself too thin on too many social networks. But who is your true audience? How do you get to know them? Where are they hanging out? How can you find
Before he became the co-founder of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann moved to California and started working for Google in customer support before eventually starting a business. He says, of his then move from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Valley: Being close to people that inspire you is a very good first step. Fittingly, that’s exactly what his company, Pinterest, now makes possible: Allowing people to get close to the brands, products, and people that inspire them. With Pinterest now accounting for 25
Ready to get started on YouTube? Or wish your YouTube Channel were performing better? I’m here to help! YouTube is effectively the second largest search engine in the world (behind only Google). With video becoming more and more important (we even launched Buffer for video last week!), now is the perfect time to start optimizing your YouTube Channel and begin reaping the benefits of a strong video strategy, including connecting with new potential customers, getting a better search presence and
We’re incredibly grateful to have the chance to learn from others and experiment for ourselves with what works best on social media. And we’re so very happy to share our best strategies with you! To collect all these favorite tips in one place, we’ve compiled our top 25 social media strategies into a free ebook that you can download below. We’ve included strategies for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more—all of which you can implement today, in just a few minutes and just a few clicks. Get
The Internet seems full with useful, entertaining, and educational places to spend time, not to mention important places for brands and businesses to connect with their audience. One site that keeps coming up for us is Quora, the community-fueled question-and-answer site. We’ve mentioned it in a handful of articles on topics like idea curation and content sources. And it’s had us wondering: What all can a marketer do with Quora? I was excited to research this and find out all that’s availabl
We’re quite keen to always be learning new things at Buffer—new social media strategies, new languages, new skills and experiments. And we love learning together—with each other and with you. One area that we’ve been fortunate to gain some knowledge and experience is with social media sharing, which can be a big one for those who are eager to get involved but not quite sure where to start. We’d love to help people get started with social media. We’d love to help with social media marketing, f
How did you end up learning the unwritten rules for social media etiquette? For me, it was a lot of watching and waiting, a bit of experimenting, and tons of trial and error. When I first started out on social media, I had just the most basic rules and intuitions. Even now, I feel like I learn a new quirk or quibble on a near-daily basis. It’s hard to know which rules exist, which ones are real, and which ones are okay to break or follow. I’d love to help shed some light here so that you can
Whether you’re starting a social media marketing plan from scratch or redefining an existing social media strategy, we’ve found that taking a moment to reflect on some key questions can be a really valuable exercise. These Big Important questions—capital “B,” capital “I”—can help point you down the best path with your social media efforts and ensure that the time you spend is aimed at the right places and toward your top goals. I’ve listed here 25 of the questions that I’ve found most helpful
Twitter tips is one of our favorite topics on the blog. We love learning how to get more followers, earn more clicks, and share better content. Twitter represents a huge—and free!—opportunity for marketers to distribute content, engage with others in their industry, and promote their brand online. And we’re keen to find the absolute best way to get the most value out of Twitter. We’ve written before about Twitter tips for beginners, time-saving hacks, and advanced techniques, and for the firs
Social media management can be a full-time job, and even for those who do social along with any number of other tasks, social media marketing can still take 10 or more hours every week. So what would you do if you only had 30 minutes to spend on social media? How would you prioritize your tasks so you make the absolute most of your valuable time? I tend to find pockets of time throughout the day where I wish I could be as productive as possible in windows here and there. When a 30-minute wind
You don’t need to ask IT whether your coworkers are on social media during the workday. It’s like asking if they are breathing. And that can be a great thing. Studies have shown that employees can post, tweet, and pin and still perform at peak levels—maybe even more productively than their less plugged-in counterparts. Instead of instilling policies to try to prevent team members from using social media at work, more and more companies are incorporating their employees’ social media enthusiasm
Here’s a riddle: When is a tweet more than a tweet? We’re all pretty familiar with Twitter’s 140 characters—and of course, a photo is always an eye-catching addition. But what if your Twitter audience could sign up for your email list without ever leaving Twitter, or directly download your new app straight from a tweet? What if a photo and article summary could travel alongside every post of your content? And what if you could do all of this for free, right now? Twitter cards offer all this p
A few months ago we started up a new Twitter chat series, #Bufferchat. So far, we’ve talked about everything from productivity to social media monitoring and lots of other topics in between. These days, we have up to 185 participants each week, sending out nearly 2,000 tweets. It’s a true delight! Along the way, I’ve been learning the ins and outs of operating a Twitter chat and testing new tools and ideas to optimize our chat even further. It’s amazing how much there is to know, both for the
Admit it. Sometimes, your Twitter life is messy. You follow hundreds of people — maybe thousands. Staring at your timeline is about as intelligible as reading a stock ticker. How do you bring organization to your Twitter life? How do you rise above the confusion, cut through the complexity, and become a superstar on Twitter? You learn these 14 Twitter hacks. Once you pick up on these power user features, you’ll become a Twitter pro in no time. Exclusive Resource: Get a free, 30-page ebook
Selling is tough. It can be scary. It can be intimidating. But if you wanna succeed in this life, you’ve gotta learn how to do it. As the founder of Hustle Con, the startup conference for non-technical founders, I’ve been throwing conferences for a while now—and that means the team and I have done a TON of selling. Whether it’s a $10,000 sponsorship or 350 tickets to a conference, we’ve learned the tactics to convince people to act. In this post, I’ll show you 4 step-by-step methods that use s
Just the other day someone introduced me to a blogpost that could have fit right in on the pages of KISS Metrics or HubSpot. Instead, it was published on a brand new blog. And I started thinking, how might this blog get from unknown to well-known if it’s already got quality figured out? Provided we’ve got the goods, what’s to help you or me stand out from the crowd? Quality, in many ways, has become a commodity—a mass-produced, ubiquitous good in large supply. Social media marketing and conten
Your online reputation is your reputation. And it better be good. The way you describe yourself on Twitter has everything to do with how people perceive you online. So how the heck do you do it right? In this post, we’ll go over the 7 key ingredients of a powerful Twitter bio–whether you’re a novice or a social media pro. But before we get into that, let’s first discuss the challenges of creating a Twitter bio. Get more clicks on Twitter by scheduling your posts for the ideal time. Get sta
I spend my days writing content from my desktop computer for people who will read the content on their smartphones and tablets. Go figure. Mobile devices are fast becoming the preferred method of reading, sharing, and engaging with online content. It’s strange to think that the content we create on desktops and laptops will end up on dozens of different screen sizes before all is said and done. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind. When I share to social media, what will my sharing look like to
Last week Buffer had the great pleasure of co-hosting a webinar with Twitter (yes, THAT Twitter!) During the webinar, I talked with Jimmy Hang of Twitter for Small Business about how to make your Twitter content work harder for your business, focusing on three major areas: * Writing great tweets * Timing it right * Measuring and testing If you weren’t able to make it but still want to write must-click content on Twitter (and really, who doesn’t?), here’s your guide! (Psst: You can scroll t
Among the many superpowers I wish I had, one that would be quite useful is the ability to understand social media metrics. I know enough to get by, and I love learning the new techniques to get more from these numbers—and to make sure I’m seeking the right numbers in the first place. In an effort to understand the little bits I can, I’ve done some research into all the many different social media stats you might track and which ones are worthwhile. Wouldn’t you know it, social media stats aren’
Few social media practices escape the arm of experiments here at Buffer. We love testing, iterating, and testing again to find ways to boost our metrics and explore new ways to interact better with our audience. Now Google+’s turn has finally come. We have made pushes on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to grow our numbers, and most recently we’ve been trying out some new tactics with Google+. And while doing so, we noticed that many others are talking about and testing out Google+ right alongs
Nowadays, when I endeavor to check my Facebook statistics, I do so with the window open, birds singing, a pint of ice cream at my desk, and party jams playing on my jambox. I must balance the bad news with some good. Checking Facebook statistics has been bad news for a lot of us lately as we wrestle with declining numbers and shrinking reach. As the Facebook algorithm continues to change and adapt, we continue looking for answers. Why can’t we reach more fans with our updates? What kind of con
The word “audit” deserves more love than it gets. When I hear the word, my mind goes straight to tax season and the manila envelope crammed with receipts and forms that I keep stashed away in the closet. Audits seem to equal anxiety, which is too bad – because not all audits are created equal. A tune-up at the garage is essentially an audit for your car, a check-up at the doctor is an audit of your health. You can learn a lot from regular reviews like these. The same holds true for an au