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Blog - Page 27

A collection of 2,469 blog posts

10 Important Skills and Traits Your Social Media Manager Will Need

How to subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS A decade ago, the role of a social media manager might not have even existed. Today, however, almost every company is involved in social media one way or another. A quick look at Google Trends shows the rise in interest in the term “social media manager” over the years, and it seems that people have never been as interested in the term as they are today. But what does it take to be a great social media manager? What are

OpenMay 13, 2019
10 Org Chart Styles We Admire (And the One We Use at Buffer)

Within any company, the organizational chart lives a complicated, contradictory experience. At times, the org chart represents beloved clarity and organization. Other times, it represents rigidity and the tyranny of top-down, hierarchical systems. Organizations often phase out their org charts only to resurrect them again when they find themselves looking for an answer on organization and structure. While some may come back in original form, many companies are looking for new and improved ways

Why Brands are Turning to Spotify as the Next Big Social Platform

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Ugly Drinks’ Four Secrets to Disrupting a $392 Billion Industry

Great businesses see the future differently. * Apple made CD’s redundant, and gave us 1,000 songs in our pocket * Airbnb took travel, and made us all feel at home across globe * Netflix made video rentals a thing of the past, and disrupted the Oscars And now, Ugly Drinks is creating a new, healthier future for the $392 billion soft drinks industry,

The Power of the Pause: Introducing Sabbaticals at Buffer

Imagine no longer being able to enjoy time with friends and family, because work is constantly on your mind and your phone is constantly in your hand – and the more you stress, the worse you feel. Or imagine the job you once loved suddenly feeling hollow and pointless, leaving you depressed and constantly fatigued. For a lot of us who feel deeply connected to our work, this is almost unthinkable. But these are some classic signs of burnout, which can lead to serious physical, mental, and s

How to Get (Real!) Followers on Social Media in 2019

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Why Isn’t Anyone Talking About Live Video Anymore? The Current State of Live

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6 Simple Ways You Can Use Neuroscience to Increase Marketing Productivity

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OpenApr 10, 2019
My Experience with Burnout as a Startup Founder

In mid-2017, I hit burnout in a really big way and wound up taking a 6-week break to recharge. I want to fully share my story here and include some things I wish I’d done differently in the hope that this can help anyone else experiencing burnout. How it began: A year of change, stress, and loss Looking back, the lead-up to my burnout goes back to the end of 2015. My co-founder and I were growing apart on our vision for Buffer’s future, which continued throughout 2016 despite several in-perso

Case StudiesApr 10, 2019
Inside Look: How Two Teams Share a Social Media Inbox

Only 10% of customer messages are answered on social media . Yet some brands find a way to answer 100% of requests. What’s their secret? Having many hands on deck certainly helps. We’ve found that some of the fastest-responding, maximum-delighting brands on social media employ a two-team approach to responding. Customer support teams handle all inbound product questions, and m

8 Unexpected Marketing Lessons from History’s Most Influential Leaders

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OpenMar 29, 2019
Our Latest Pay Analysis: Examining Buffer’s Gender Pay Gap in 2019

Thanks for reading our equal pay report. See our updated 2021 pay analysis here.  Progress seldom looks like the straight line we all wish it might. Real life is much messier, filled with false starts, mistakes, and backtracks. That’s an especially tough truth when it comes to issues like the gender pay gap that affect real people’s lives so deeply. But in advance of this year’s Equal Pay Day, Buffer has a progress story to tell – and it looks nothing like a straight upward line. What is E

The Art of Copywriting: How to Write Better Captions that Get Engagement

How to subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS What you’re trying to do, when you tell a story, is to write about an event in your life that made you feel some particular way. And what you’re trying to do, when you tell a story, is to get the audience to have that same feeling. – Pete Docter While we don’t typically associate the art of copywriting with social media captions, the two are deeply intertwined. A really good caption informs us about the things we canno

7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Retargeting Ad Campaigns

How to subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a powerful form of digital advertising in which audiences (potential customers) are targeted with specific ads based on their behavior online. In other words, retargeting campaigns turn internet “window shoppers” into real paying customers for your business. While we as marketers would love to live in a world in which a majority of online visitors became customers, the truth i

I Used to Call My Coworkers “Family.” Here’s Why I Stopped.

There was a time where I wholly embraced calling our team — our company — a family. I’ve written cards to our community members and called them part of our Buffer family. I’ve sent custom packages to welcome our new teammates to the Buffer family (and we’ve grown from 25 teammates to nearly 90 in about four years.) I relished how the term “family” made everyone feel so welcomed, accepted, and appreciated. There’s nothi

OpenFeb 25, 2019
Continuing to Improve on Pay: Our Latest Changes to the Salary Formula and How Much it Costs

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 or view our salaries page . We live in a world where things are constantly changing, and Buffer is no exception, especially when it comes to how we pay our team! It’s been over five years since we first introduced transparent salaries and a salary formula [https://buffer.com/resou

AdvertisingFeb 19, 2019
Does Vertical Video Make a Difference? We Spent $6,000 on Tests to Find Out

There has been much discussion recently on industry-leading publications about the effectiveness of video on social media. For example, did you know that video posts on Facebook receive at least 59 percent more engagement than other post types? Since our 2017 research with Animoto comparing square vs. landscape video, little has been published around the impact of video format on overall video engagement. Specifically, vertical video vs. square video. While we know that square video (1:1

The 10 Top Social Media Tools Brands are Using to Succeed in 2019

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OverflowFeb 8, 2019
Creating a custom video SeekBar on Android

Header Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash A new feature we’ve been building out required the use of a thumbnail picker for video files. After looking around for open-source implementations, it was clear that there wasn’t something that already existed which would fit in with our app – for this reason we needed to build our own video thumbnail picker component. This component, Thumby, can be found over on GitHub [ht

Case StudiesFeb 5, 2019
Nike’s Secret to Success on Instagram: Building an Engaged Community

This post is part of our Instagram Marketing Strategy series. The series provides you with actionable insights and lessons on how businesses are using Instagram. Next up, Wes Warfield from Nike shares how it handles engagement on Instagram.  Chances are you’ve come across Nike on Instagram at one point or another. With more than 83 million followers around the world, Nike is easily in the top 20 most followed Instagram accounts globally (out of nearly one billion). As you might imagine, t

Case StudiesFeb 5, 2019
Building an Ecommerce Business: From Zero to $100,000 in Revenue from Instagram Ads

In February 2017, when Remi and his girlfriend Alondra were visiting Tokyo, the last thing they were thinking about was starting a business together. But a chance discovery in a Tokyo stationery store changed everything for the couple. “We stumbled upon a shelf full of stickers made by B-Side Label,” Remi explained. “The stickers were extremely high-quality and unlike anything we had ever seen.” The pair purchased a few stickers and didn’t think any more of it until the following day when they

Case StudiesFeb 5, 2019
How Blenders Eyewear Creates Profitable Instagram Ad Campaigns

This post is part of our Instagram Marketing Strategy series. The series provides you with actionable insights and lessons on how businesses are using Instagram. Next up, Grace McLaughlin shares how how Blenders Eyewear uses Instagram ads to grow its business.  “We are a visual brand with a visual product so the image sharing platform makes for the perfect ad channel,” Grace McLaughlin explained to me over email. “We have a loyal community of content creators and brand ambassad

Case StudiesFeb 5, 2019
How Bustle Ignited Engagement and Created New Revenue Streams Using Instagram Stories

This post is part of our Instagram Marketing Strategy series . The series provides you with actionable insights and lessons on how businesses are using Instagram. Next up, Hannah Caldwell shares how Bustle uses Instagram Stories. Stories were introduced to Instagram in August 2016, and as soon as the new featured dropped, the social media team at Bustle — a premium publisher reaching millennial women — we

Case StudiesFeb 5, 2019
The Secret to Instagram Success: Square’s Community Curation Strategy

This post is part of our Instagram Marketing Strategy series . The series provides you with actionable insights and lessons on how businesses are using Instagram. Next up, Nick Dimichino shares exactly how Square’s been able to grow an engaged following on Instagram. When your product powers millions of businesses and sellers around the world , you’re bound to find some incredibly inspiring stories to share on social media. Yet