Blog - Page 56
A collection of 2,517 blog posts
Every employee at Buffer can take a full day or two half-days off each quarter to show gratitude by volunteering or otherwise contributing to their community, wherever they may be. Here’s more detail about the program!
What should you do if you want to become the best at what you do? There’s probably a long list, with lots of options. One thing we’re particularly fond of at Buffer when it comes to improving ourselves is listening to podcasts relevant to our niche and industry. In our case, that means social media podcasts! What we love about podcasts is that they make it easy to hear from industry leaders and talented folks about their experiences and advice (which we might not be able to read about anywher
What is it like to be the Director or Social Media for one America’s largest and most engaged universities? With more than 1,000 social media accounts to oversee and an audience base of over 6 million, Nikki Sunstrum, Director of Social Media at the University of Michigan, knows what it takes to reach and engage with a large demographic of people from prospective students to parents to proud alumni. We had the pleasure of speaking to Nikki about what it’s like to be the Director of Social Medi
The path to becoming a thought leader on social media is one that is not always clearly defined. Thought leaders and influencers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, specialties, industries and expertise. And in many cases, social media thought leaders don’t consciously seek to become an “influencer,” it happens naturally over time with lots of hard work and dedication. But what if there was a way to position yourself to become a thought leader in your industry? We’d love to share some ti
It feels ridiculous for me to write about being an engineering manager. It’s a job I’ve done for not even 30 days yet. But that’s what I want to know from others — how did you start? How did you make it through your first month? No two first rodeos are ever alike. But they’re all rodeos, and falling off is falling off. There’s some kind of pattern. So here I am, writing the post that I want to read. What is this job, anyway? I had a rough idea what I was getting into from the internal
For the past five years, our Android project has maintained a similar package structure from when it was first created in 2012. There have been a few changes here and there, but the general structure has remained the same. When most applications are created, the class count is small. However, as the app grows and features get added, it can be easy for packages to become bloated, potentially to the point where it makes a workspace feel unorganized and difficult to navigate. This was starting to
It’s one of those mythical and vaunted startup perks, and one of the Buffer perks that tends to entice folks the most: unlimited vacation time. When someone new joins the team, they’re immediately granted as much time away from work as they’d like, no questions asked. Under this non-policy policy, teammates have had some great vacations, including cruises around the world and even a month of sailing the Atlantic. But is it really that simple? Well, yes and no. Buffer’s unlimited vacation po
Building a personal brand on social media is one of the best ways to become a thought leader in your industry. Whether you’re looking to change roles or simply advance your career, developing a personal brand is a great place to start. And we’d love to share some tips on how. Duke University professor Dorie Clark — a bestselling author and consultant for various Fortune 500 companies — is an expert in the field of personal branding. Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Fo
Heads up! This is an older post that references some outdated processes at Buffer, specifically the “Buffer bootcamp.” Feel free to see the latest information here, including all the reasons why we retired this concept! We’re Retiring The ‘Buffer Bootcamp’ Period For New Teammates – Here’s Why Every new person who joins the Buffer team starts with a 45-day bootcamp trial period, which is intended to see how the fit feels for both the bootcamper and for Buffer. As my bootcamp came to a close l
I’ve “leaned back.” And I’m okay with it. Sort of. As the first teammate to have a baby while working at Buffer, I was able to create our initial family leave policy before I used it. Even that wasn’t enough to prepare me for the reality of being a working mom. Going into motherhood, I had a lot of grandiose ideas, preconceived notions and expectations. The biggest of which was that I’d be able to jump back into my role without skipping a beat. After all, Sheryl Sandberg did it – she leaned i
Before we launched our Buffer podcast , so much of our time and energy (99.9% of it, I’d wager!) was spent getting the sounds and feel just right. We did all the podcast things we were supposed to do in order to make a really great podcast — the interviews, the mixing, the uploading — and now that the time had come to press publish … … we needed a plan to promote
January 3, 2011, was my first day at Buffer as sort of the social media intern. The introductory task that Joel and I came up with was fairly simple: Spend 30 minutes a day on Buffer’s Twitter account and help it grow. We had about 78 followers at the time, and the 100 follower mark was in sight. I had just turned 20 years old, was halfway through my second year in college and I was ready—for anything really. It didn’t matter what, I just wanted to go and do. So I did. I made a lot of mistake
Twitter has just made a big change to the way tweets work. From today, Twitter is cutting back on what types of content will use up its 140-character limit. Now, @names in replies, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) and quoted Tweets will no longer be counted against the valuable 140 characters that make up a tweet. This allows for richer public conversations that are easier to follow on Twitter and ensures people can attach media to tweets without sacrificing the charact
Sharing your brand’s story through user-generated content (UGC) is one of the best ways to build an authentic and engaging community on social media. It takes the old-school marketing approach of “brand to consumer” and turns it into a way for your audience to connect one-on-one with each other through shared content. Dom Garrett – marketer at BTC Revolutions (one of Inc.’s top 500 fastest growing private companies in America), social media manager at CMX, and managing editor at The Only Colors
Jeremy Goldman stopped by #bufferchat this week to share his insights about the future of video storytelling. During the chat, our community discussed creative ways to tell stories through videos , the best tools to use for creating high-quality videos, their thoughts for what marketing videos will look like in 10 years, and much more! Read on to discover all of the amazing
The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and brands interested in learning about new and exciting ways to implement social media marketing across a variety of platforms and industries. Join Buffer hosts Hailley, Brian, and Kevan each week as they interview some of the best marketers from brands and businesses that are leading the way in social media innovation and experimentation around the world. We promise to keep it fun, insightful, interesting, and most of all, actionable. The
What does it take to get hired as a social media manager? Perhaps you’re looking for a job in social (or perhaps you’re hiring for one). There are a ton of different factors that could go into a successful stint on ever-changing social media. Rather than get stuck, we’d love to help you move forward! We had the privilege of speaking with HubSpot VP of Marketing Meghan Keaney Anderson about the specific attributes she looks for when hiring social media managers, as well as how a highly successf
What are some of the accounts you love to follow on social media? For us, Moz’s Rand Fishkin and his enjoyable, educational Twitter feed is right near the top. Rand shares all sorts of content on marketing, SEO, technology, and startups, and he does so with a fine eye toward curation. Content curation on social media is a great way to provide value to your audience and build your own brand. Rand has one of the strongest brands anywhere on social — 334,000 Twitter followers and an engaged audie
What is it like to be the social media manager for one of the world’s largest organizations? With more than 500 social media accounts to oversee, an audience in the tens of millions, and some of the most engaging content in the world to choose from, John Yembrick, Social Media Manager at NASA, has one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs in marketing. We had the honor of speaking to John about his unique approach to social media at NASA and how his team is always coming up with new ways
* Last month’s report * All Investor reports * All Buffer reports In August, we had our best MRR numbers of 2016 and wrapped up our first “Buffercelerator” project. Here are the highlights: MRR: $947.7k ARR: $11.4m MoM: 4.7% from July Note: We adjusted our calculation of MRR as we discovered we were overreporting our MRR by around $20k, which was due to the portion of MRR coming from Apple in-app subscriptions. We’ve now corrected this, and so if you were to compare our revenue growth to l
It’s perhaps a daily occurrence for a cat, dog, child or significant other to appear in a meeting between Buffer team members. And we’re okay with that. More than okay. We love these moments and we encourage them. Here is my son, Anthony’s, appearance at his first Buffer all-hands meeting when he was three months old (we’re towards the top left): As a fully distributed team, many of us work from home. For the parents of Buffer, this allows for the opportunity to work from home with their kids
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. We’ve shared a bit in the past about what we believe creates a great fit at Buffer, but the hiring process is so much more than these factors alone. How do you create a positive experience for all candidates, regardless of the outcome? How do you avoid bias and view all candidates through a lens of equality? We don’t know all the answers to these quest
YouTube, the Google-owned video network, boasts over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. On mobile alone, YouTube reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S. What’s amazing, though, is that only 9% of small businesses in the U.S. are actively using YouTube, and my hunch is that figure would be pretty accurate worldwide, too. So why are
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. What combination of strengths help a team thrive? We’ve written before about the “bias toward action” mindset that we believe creates a great fit on the Buffer team, and we’re always experimenting, evolving and fine-tuning the ways we work together. Recently, we’ve turned toward a new model we’re