Blog - Page 46

A collection of 2,474 blog posts

Guides & CoursesMay 25, 2017
How to Use Instagram Search & Explore to Boost Your Instagram Marketing

Instagram places a big emphasis on search and discovery of content. It’s one of the few social media platforms with a Search and Explore tab in its app. Being featured in the search results or in Instagram’s Explore section can be a great way to boost your success on the network with added exposure and the chance to reach new users who may not have otherwise seen your content. There are also several other ways you can use Instagram’s Search and Explore for your business — finding the best hash

OpenMay 18, 2017
How We’re Focusing on Diversity and Inclusion Without Growing Our Team

Let’s say you’re a startup or early stage company and you’ve made it a priority to grow in a way that’s diverse, inclusive, and representative of its surroundings. That’s a great decision! Now, how do you make it happen? Do you tell everyone to say something when they see something? Create a committee? Appoint one person to create change? At Buffer, we’ve tried all 3 of these methods and even more mixed combinations between them. In the last few years, we’ve: * Allowed diversity projects t

Buffer NewsMay 18, 2017
How to Craft the Perfect Post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Managing a social media strategy is consistently challenging for individuals and businesses of all sizes. There’s the art of uncovering when to post your content. Continually measuring your ROI and social analytics. And, of course, the constant demand for fresh, engaging content to be shared. Added to that, each major social network has continued to diverge both in how they are set up and what your audiences expect on each one. Each different platform also has its own set of character limits,

OpenMay 16, 2017
How We Manage Our Editorial Schedule Remotely

It’s 10:00 a.m. here in England. Alfred and I have just finished our weekly content sync. Alfred is a content crafter here at Buffer and does an amazing job producing most of the content we post on our Social blog and I’m an editor focusing on our content strategy. We catch up for an hour every Tuesday to discuss the various pieces of content and projects we’re working on for Buffer’s Social blog. Alfred is based in Singapore, where it’s 6:00 p.m. for him when it’s 10:00 a.m. for me. He’s about

Want to Create a Trail-Blazing Social Media Campaign? Here Are 13 Tips From Brands like Airbnb, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks

Running social media campaigns can be quite different from managing your social media profiles on an ongoing basis. Unlike your ongoing social media marketing, campaigns tend to be for a specific purpose and only last for a certain time period. The strategy you’d take for running a social media campaign might be different from your usual social media marketing strategy. So how do you run a successful social media campaign? Through case studies of successful social media campaigns by companies

PodcastsMay 15, 2017
Inside the Thriving Six-Figure Facebook Ads Strategy at Classpass – Mary Rykaczewski [SSM044]

Facebook ads are quickly becoming a staple of almost every successful social media strategy. They have the power to benefit your business or brand on so many different levels. From understanding your target audience to driving sales to raising brand awareness, Facebook ads are a compelling way to spend your social advertising dol

Self-ImprovementMay 11, 2017
Becoming a Better Manager: The 4 Playlists I Use To Help Me Context-Switch

Before you say context-switching is the worst, hear me out — being a manager , I’ll often have several calls back to back and need to shift emotional context quickly. I sometimes carry the mindset and energy of one meeting through to the next and it leaves me less emotionally attuned. I was getting tired from the effort of context-switching and sometimes would be visibly drained or stressed. This is a catching disease: second-hand stress [

OverflowMay 10, 2017
Improving our iOS Share Extension Installation Guide

Since iOS 8, we’ve been able to ship our Composer as an extension which allows users to share from their favorite apps that make use of UIActivityViewController. We were super excited to be able to ship the share extension to replace the old Bookmarklet code we had in prior versions of the app for a similar effect. Installing extensions on an iOS device isn’t so easy for the end user. We’ve been through a couple of iterations of guides to walk users through the process of adding the Buffer butt

How to Write a Great Social Media Manager Job Description (and Hire a Top Social Media Manager)

Writing a great social media manager job description is not an easy task. The job description is one of the first few things potential applicants read and a well-written job description can increase the chances of you hiring the best social media manager for your company. We’re thrilled that you’re looking to hire a new social media manager and would love to help you as much as we can! Here’s everything you need to know about writing a great social media manager job description (and more).

ResourcesMay 8, 2017
9 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Using Buffer – Minisode [SSM043]

Social media offers a huge opportunity for you to reach and connect with people in creative ways. Via great content. Hilarious cat GIFs. Amazing brand stories. But sometimes it can be a challenge to find the time or the right tools to build a successful social media program that works both short and long-term. We know the feeling! That’s why we’re super excited to share a brand new Minisode with you all about how you can utilize Buffer to get the most out of your social media marketing. The

OpenMay 4, 2017
A New Goal-Setting Framework For A Team That Doesn’t Work on Projects Together

Goal-setting has always been one of my favorite activities. I love the feeling of accomplishing something within a set timeframe and getting to cross it off a big list of other goals. I love seeing the progress and celebrating the achievement — in fact, I love it so much that you’ll find me routinely setting and revising goals throughout the year, both at work and for my personal life. We recently made the shift away from OKRs as a company-wide goal-setting framework, and we started experimenti

AnalyticsMay 4, 2017
How to Use Twitter Analytics: 17 Simple-to-Find Stats to Help You Tweet Better

This post was originally published on October 15, 2014, and we have just updated it with the latest information and screenshots of Twitter analytics. We social media marketers are a lucky bunch; not only are there a gigantic number of free social media tools at our disposal (everything from timing tools to social media management tools like Buffer), there are free tools from the social networks themselves: Facebook Insights, Pinterest analytics, and now Twitter analytics, too. We now have tons

Step-by-Step: How We Planned A Retreat For a Remote Team of 75

One of the first projects I took on in bootcamp was helping to plan the next Buffer retreat. Along with my mentor, manager, and friend, Rodolphe, we started thinking about that retreat about a week after the Hawaii retreat wrapped up. I’d love to take you through exactly how we planned Buffer’s 8th retreat, from start to finish, from an operations perspective. Let’s dive in! Our Timeline for Buffer’s 8th Retreat in Madrid Here’s a rough timeline of how things unfolded for the Madrid retreat

The Psychology of Marketing: 18 Ways to Use Social Proof to Boost Your Results

Science plays a key role in marketing, especially the science of psychology. We have written about the 15 psychological principles in marketing and studied seven social media psychological research. This time, we’d love to dive deeper into one of the most powerful and prominent psychological phenomena… Social proof. The use of social proof can be found in many areas of both offline and online marketing. In this post, we’ll focus on the use of social proof on social media to boost your marketi

PodcastsMay 1, 2017
5 Key Elements of the Perfect Facebook Ad – Molly Pittman [SSM042]

Is it possible to create the perfect Facebook ad ? One that increases brand awareness, drives engagement, and leads to sales all in one go? We’d like to think so! But we needed a true expert on Facebook advertising to find out. One that really knows their stuff. That’s where VP of Marketing at DigitalMarketer , Molly Pittman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-pit

OpenApr 27, 2017
Transparency in Engineering: Can We Open Source Our Whole Code Base?

As a company that already has all of their employees’ salaries online , we often get asked how far we will go with transparency . On the engineering team, this is challenging because we need to balance our value of transparency, with the security of our product and users, so the “how far” question is a tough one to answer. At our recent Madrid retreat , we aske

AdvertisingApr 27, 2017
You Have $100 to Spend on Social Media Marketing. Here’s One Way to Spend It.

How big is your social media budget? I’ve heard of companies that spend millions on marketing and others who spend zero (we skew toward the zero side at Buffer). Regardless of how much you spend, you aim to spend it well. That’s why a hypothetical situation like — what would you do with $100 to spend on social media marketing ? — can be an extremely valuable exercise. I have some ideas on what I’d do with the $100, ways to wring the mos

Self-ImprovementApr 25, 2017
5 Side Hustle Lessons I Learned From My Day Job

I never planned on being an entrepreneur. That label always sounded far too lofty for me. Entrepreneurs were guys in suits working everyone in the room. Entrepreneurs only got three hours of sleep a night because the rest of the time they were hustling. Entrepreneurs would look at someone like me and realize right away that I didn’t belong. But that picture – my picture – has changed. Women now make up 40 percent of new entrepreneurs in the United States. And startups these days don’t have to

Understanding the Instagram Algorithm: 7 Key Factors and Why the Algorithm is Great for Marketers

The Instagram algorithm, just like the Facebook News Feed algorithm, is so mysterious yet ingenious and brilliant in showing the best content to the most people. If you are creating great content, more followers — and non-followers — are going to see it. But how does the Instagram algorithm work? In this post, we’ll break it all down for you. We’ll go through the factors that could influence the ranking of your content on your followers’ feed and explain why the Instagram algorithm is

Optimal Timing, Videos, and More: 10 Easy Ways to Boost Your Instagram Reach

Since Instagram started sorting posts on users’ feed with an algorithm , many marketers have noticed a decline in their organic reach and engagement. But that doesn’t have to be the case for you. In fact, it could be possible for you to reach more of your followers now than without the new Instagram algorithm. In this post, we’ll share 10 straightforward ways you can use to increase your organic reach on Instagram today. Buffer for Instagram now c

PodcastsApr 24, 2017
Social Media Strategies for Small Businesses: Taking Your Company to the Next Level – Marie Forleo [SSM041]

Managing social media for a small business is a unique and sometimes overwhelming challenge for so many entrepreneurs and marketers. On one hand, you have a business to run. On the other, you want that business to grow and flourish. And although you know that social media has the power to be an important part of your overall marketing strategy , there’s tons of completely valid reasons why it never quite happens. Time, resources [https://

ReportsApr 20, 2017
Buffer in Q1 2017: 4 Million Blog Sessions, Responding to Customers in 13 Seconds, and our 8th retreat in Madrid

Editor’s Note: We’ve switched our Investor’s Reports from monthly to quarterly.We’re excited to keep publishing them in full for our Buffer Open audience in keeping with our value of transparency . Buffer Investor Report Q1 2017 * Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports MRR $1.18m ARR $13.8m MoM 1.9% from

News and TrendsApr 20, 2017
F8 2017 Recap: 10 Major Announcements Every Marketer Should Know

We’re making the camera the first augmented reality platform. — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook F8 conference 2017 Facebook’s F8 conference was once again filled with incredibly exciting announcements. Augmented reality (AR) could be seen as the main theme of this year’s conference. From augmented masks and special effects to 360 video camera to Facebook Spaces (an app where you can hang out with your family and friends virtually), Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook want to enable us to connect with one

AnalyticsApr 19, 2017
The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Analytics: Metrics, Insights, Tools, and Tips

More than 15 million businesses now use Instagram as a marketing tool. And one of the most important aspects of any Instagram marketing strategy is a clear focus on Instagram analytics. Without analytics, your Instagram marketing efforts can be a little hit-and-miss. How do you know if your Instagram marketing strategy is going well? How do you track your Instagram performance and improve your content? Analytics are often essential for answering your questions. With Instagram analytics,