Blog - Page 50

A collection of 2,517 blog posts

Self-ImprovementMar 1, 2017
When Goals and Plans Are Eclipsed by Survival Mode

I worked myself into a lovely pickle at the end of 2016. I gave my manager feedback that I’d love to have a session on career planning and goals for my role in the company. I love these sorts of chats! Well, I used to. I’ve been so knee-deep in survival mode during my son’s first year of life, wrangling a puppy, and finding out that I was pregnant with number 2 when my son was 9 months old that I suddenly realized, while preparing for this chat, that I had no short- or long-term goals. “Well

OpenMar 1, 2017
Buffer and the AWS Outage: How This Interruption May Have Affected Your Posts

tl;dr – Buffer experienced interrupted service due to the AWS outage on Tuesday. All is back to normal now, and all posts are going out as expected. We know how important a reliable social media experience is for you, and we recognize how interruptions to Buffer can have a significant impact. We’re incredibly sorry for the disruption we caused you today. Here is precisely what happened and how it may have affected you. What happened For several hours on Tuesday, one of Buffer’s main hosting p

11 Storytelling Formulas to Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing

Legendary marketer, Seth Godin, describes marketing as “the art of telling a story that resonates with your audience and then spreads.” If you look at some of the biggest brands around, you might notice that they are often amazing storytellers. * Apple tells stories of people challenging the norms * Nike tells stories of people doing the impossible * Airbnb tells stories of travelers living in homes around the world and belonging any

PodcastsFeb 27, 2017
Social Media Algorithms: How They Work and How to Use Them in Your Favor – Michael Stelzner [SSM032]

Social media algorithms are a lot like “Dog Years.” They seems to progress and change at a rate of seven years for every one year on the human calendar. We’ve seen first-hand the dramatic declines in traffic and organic reach over the last two years as so many businesses have. But despite the challenges that marketers face with social media algorithms, there is still a way to overcome them and share your content with the world. Michael Stelzner

OpenFeb 24, 2017
Cloudbleed Update: Buffer Data Is Not Affected

tl;dr – Customers should not worry about their Buffer data after the Cloudbleed incident Several hours ago our team learned of a large security incident at Cloudflare , a service we use for Buffer. The incident, which you may have heard about, has been nicknamed “Cloudbleed.” Many websites, including Buffer, use Cloudflare to help handle web traffic more quickly and efficiently amongst many other th

BufferchatFeb 23, 2017
Finding Success with Freelancing: A #Bufferchat Recap

This week on #bufferchat, we discussed how to find success with freelancing, with Kate Kendall , founder and CEO of CloudPeeps , as our special guest! The community talked about great skills to have while freelancing, advice for expanding one’s network, the best places to find freelance opportunities, and much more. Read on to discover all of the awesome insights that were shared during the chat! Catch our weekly Twitter c

ResourcesFeb 22, 2017
20 Creative Ways to Use Social Media for Storytelling

Storytelling has always played a part in successful marketing. Stories enable us to build personality and create a connection with consumers. But can we actually tell a story on social media? Is it possible to narrate a story with social media posts that are supposed to be short and sweet? It turns out there are many ways to use social media for storytelling! In this post, I’d love to share 20 actionable ways to use social media for storytelling. Ready to dive in? Navigating this article

PodcastsFeb 20, 2017
Proven Instagram Stories Strategies from the Experts at Bustle – Hannah Caldwell [SSM030]

Instagram Stories is quickly becoming one of the go-to marketing channels for some of the world’s top brands. Take Bustle, for example, with more than 1.4 million followers on Instagram alone, they are seeing incredible results from investing in a consistent and thoughtful Instagram Stories strategy. In fact, they’re seeing so much success that they’ve dedicated an entire position to creating beautiful Stories 5-6 times per week. Behind those Bustle Instagram Stories? Hannah Caldwell. Hannah

ResourcesFeb 16, 2017
50 Video Marketing Stats to Help You Create a Winning Social Media Strategy in 2017

Video is taking over social media. In our end of 2016 social media survey, 83 percent of marketers said they’d like to create more video content if they didn’t have restraints such as time and resources. We also found that 30 percent of marketers are looking to spend more time focused on Facebook video in 2017. To help you make the fullest use of video marketing on social media and create a successful social media strategy for 2017, we’ve pulled together 50 of the most relevant video marketing

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
How Managers Can Support Family Leave + New Reflection Experiment

Buffer People/People Ops Report January 2017 * Last month’s report Last month’s Ops report * All People reports * All Buffer reports Applicants 168-53% Open blog posts published 14-1 Open blog visitors 142,867 +19% Bimonthly team NPS score [https://buffer.com/resources/why-we-ask-our-team-to-grade-us-ev

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
Live Chat Support Launched for Business Customers

Buffer Happiness Report January 2017 * Last month’s report * All Happiness reports * All Buffer reports Responses within 1 hour 35% 0% Customer satisfaction score 93+2% Email conversations 10,429 +17% Twitter conversations 6,801+33% Avg. Twitter response time 8 hr 58 min -20% Webinars hosted 6 Hello to live chat! At Buffer, we are committed to quality and s

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
Staying on Top of Alerts with Respond: Slack Integration, Inbox Filters

Respond Report January 2017 * Last month’s report * All Respond reports * All Buffer reports MoM: +9% Paying customers 90(+3%) Bugs fixed 34+ It’s February. 2017. No, you’re not alone. It’s amazing how fast this year is moving. But with the holidays behind us, our team is kicking off 2017 with a bunch of great new improvements and updates just for you. Let’s dig in :-) Facebook comments rolled

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
Building with Atomic Design, Instagram Grid Preview Coming to iOS and Lots of Open Source

Buffer Engineering Report December 2016 * Last month’s report * All Engineering reports * All Buffer reports Requests for buffer.com 215 m -13.7% Avg. response for buffer.com 262 ms +3.1% Requests for api.bufferapp.com 331 m +12.9% Avg. response for api.bufferapp.com 264 ms -1.85% Code reviews given 83% of pull requests +32% Quality * 3 S1 (severity 1) bugs: 18 opened, 15 closed. (83% smashed, 6% up from December) * 9 S2 (severity 2) bugs: 33 opened, 24 closed (73%

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
New Marketing Content Strategy for the New Year

Buffer Marketing Report January 2017 * Last month’s report * All marketing reports * All Buffer reports Buffer signups 18,922 +26% Buffer for Business trials 1,732 +16% Social blog sessions 1,321,003 +27% Email subscribers 89,424 -4% NPS 45 +10% Kicking off 2017 with a new strategy for content At the start of 2017, we launched a new approach to our content s

ReportsFeb 14, 2017
Instagram Grid Preview Launched + New Signup Experiment Results

Buffer Product Report January 2017 * Last month’s report * All Product reports * All Buffer reports Weekly active Awesome + Individual plan users 175,751 +13% Weekly active Buffer for Business users 4,905 +6.8% Buffer for Business Monthly Recurring Revenue $534,828 +2.1% Social updates sent by Buffer for Business users 4,247,699 +11.7% Users starting Buffer for Business trials 7,581 +23% Converted Buffer for Business trials 314 +6.4% Users starting Awesome t

All You Need to Know About Instagram Takeovers: How to Host a Takeover in 6 Simple Steps

Even though Instagram takeovers seem trendy now, they first started to gain popularity back in 2012 with brands like General Electric, Burberry and Food Republic inviting Instagrammers to take over their feeds for a day. What started out as a fun way for brands and Instagrammers to collaborate, has now transitioned into one of the valuable aspects of any Instagram marketing strategy . If yo

PodcastsFeb 13, 2017
A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Video Marketing in 2017 – Sunny Lenarduzzi [SSM029]

Video marketing is one of the most-talked about subjects in social media right now. Marketers, brands, and businesses everywhere are all jumping aboard this incredible trend that has truly begun to take take over our social news feeds. But despite its growing relevance, one of the questions we get most here at Buffer is: How do I get started with video marketing ? With more than 70,000 subscribers on Y

OpenFeb 10, 2017
Change at Buffer: The Next Phase, and Why Our Co-Founder and Our CTO are Moving On

We’ve always done things differently at Buffer. For me, this has always come from a natural desire to question things. Why base your company and team in a single location? Why is it customary to keep salary information private? Why can’t someone exercise during their day and work unusual hours, as long as it’s a productive way for them to work? Asking these questions – and seeking their answers – has taken us down an interesting path. It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey so far. We’ve made

Tips / How ToFeb 9, 2017
Everything You Need to Know About Snapchat Geofilters (And How to Build Your Own)

Did you know you can now create your own Snapchat Geofilters? It’s only been a few months since Snapchat debuted this feature , and there are already some amazing results flowing in for businesses and brands of all sizes (we’ll share a few quick case studies in this post). Right now, Snapchat Geofilters can offer an enormous competitive advantage because 1) not a lot of brands are using them and 2) Snapchat users love to share f

How to Choose the Best Social Media Marketing Tool for Your Business

Paralysis by analysis. I’ve totally been there, so many times. Choosing a place to eat, choosing a new computer, or even choosing the best social media marketing tool. When it comes to picking a tool for your business, there are just so many great options out there, so many wonderful, time-saving features, it’s a tall task to know exactly what’s right for you. The tool you choose is often a key ingredient when it comes to hitting your social media

Tips / How ToFeb 8, 2017
9 Powerful Time-Saving Tips to Help Grow Your Brand on Instagram

With over 600 million users across the globe, Instagram is quickly becoming a focal point for businesses of all sizes who use social media. 600 million! That’s a huge number. And the impressive stats don’t stop there… Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform and around half of its user base (more than 300 million people) use it every day. Brands on Instagram are also seeing huge amounts of engagement on Instagram. According to Forrester Research,  per-follower interaction rate i

OpenFeb 7, 2017
How Our Remote Marketing Team Collaborates Across 6 Timezones

In the past when our marketing team was only two or three people, it was easy to work on projects together. Finding time to meet and discuss was also easy, as we only had to coordinate between a few people and we were in fairly close timezones. In the past year, our marketing team has grown from a team of four to a team of eight (yay!). Timezones are mildly more of a challenge now that we are based all around the world — from the West Coast in the US to the East Coast in the US to Canada, to th

What Counts As a Video View on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat? The Buffer Guide to Video Metrics

In our State of Social Media report, eighty-three percent of marketers said they’d like to create more video content in 2017. And we can certainly see why marketers are so hot on social video. Facebook believe that most of the content we consume online in the future will be video. Twitter has recently relaunched Vine as a camera app enabling users to capture and share short-form video on the platform. And more than 10 billion videos are watched on Snapchat every day. So it’s clear video is inc

PodcastsFeb 6, 2017
Powerful Storytelling Secrets from National Geographic Travel – Lindsay Smith [SSM028]

With more than 25,000,000 adoring fans across social media, National Geographic Travel is a poster child for the power of storytelling in marketing. Their secret? Going where no one else has gone before. This is the approach that National Geographic Travel takes to every one of their stories. Undiscovered places around the world and tales of incredible human feats fill our social feed – we can’t help but click and be inspired. And Lindsay Smith, Producer at National Geographic Travel, helps