Blog - Page 68

A collection of 2,459 blog posts

Tips / How ToAug 3, 2015
How to Hire a Social Media Manager: The 12 Bedrock Habits That the Best Managers Have in Common

What makes a great social media manager? More specifically, what habits make an effective social media manager? What do the best social media managers practice every day that makes them amazing at what they do? There seems to be a lot of good advice out there about the best social media tactics used by marketers—tactics that might work great right away but are often not sustainable. I was keen to find the best habits. And to understand what traits would help a person become more effective as

Online MarketingJul 30, 2015
The Ultimate List of Product Hunt Collections for Marketers

Say you want to get started on a new marketing strategy—collecting customer research, or creating cool images, or measuring ROI. Where do you go first to find the tools that’ll make your job as smooth as can be? I often turn to listicles and roundups that bundle together a big handful of helpful tools. And this is maybe why I love Product Hunt’s collections so much. Their collections are user-generated tools lists that are easy to browse and simple to find just the tools that I need. I’m happ

OpenJul 29, 2015
5 Tricks for More Productive Remote Work

In 2014, I became a full time remote worker. This year, I’ve been lucky to work and travel in Paris, Malaga, Copenhagen, Casablanca, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Barcelona… There’s one question that’s always in the back on my mind: How can I be as productive as possible remotely? I’ve tried many different experiments to do more in less time this year, and I thought I would share 5 tricks (and their accompanying tools) that have become part of my routine. 5 Methods for More Productive R

Guides & CoursesJul 29, 2015
25 Actionable Social Media Strategies You Can Implement Today [Free Ebook!]

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 [https://buffer.ghost

Guides & CoursesJul 21, 2015
The Quick Guide to LinkedIn Marketing Strategy: 9 Best Practices

With its new features and updates, LinkedIn is becoming a social media platform that you shouldn’t overlook, especially if you are a B2B marketer. Just take a look at this infographic by LinkedIn : LinkedIn is now a promising channel to drive traffic, generate quality leads, build your thought leadership, and more. Here’s a rundown of the best Lin

OpenJul 20, 2015
The ‘No Complaining’ Rule: What it Really Means to Create a Company Culture of Positivity

Recently Joel and I were talking about the new Jawbone UP3. I had just gotten one for free as part of Buffer’s perks program, and I complained that I found the closing buckle a bit fiddly and let off some steam about how I struggled to charge it. At the end I remember saying something like “Oh, but it’s cool that I know my resting heart rate now, though.” It’s kind of ironic how much I focused on the small challenges and gave the fact that I could now track my health much more intelligently on

ToolsJul 17, 2015
The Big List of IFTTT Recipes: 40+ Hacks for Hardcore Social Media Productivity

We are all about working smarter here at Buffer. Our focus on improvement and efficiency has led us to blog smarter , share smarter , and approach problems and activities with a fresh perspective

Tips / How ToJul 15, 2015
Twitter Tips for Beginners: Everything I Wish I Knew About Twitter When I Started

This post originally published on March 17, 2014. We’ve updated it here with the latest information, images, and resources. Before I joined Buffer, I barely had a Twitter account. It existed by its lonesome for a few years as a placeholder for the day when my work allowed me to tweet freely. That day came when I had the privilege to join up with the Buffer team, and I dove right in, applying all the Twitter knowledge I had stowed away. And still, even with a running start, I had so much to lea

ReportsJul 14, 2015
Hiring at Buffer in June 2015

We’re bringing back the hiring report! The last time we reported on hiring was April 2014. Back then—15 months ago—Buffer had 20 team members. Fast forwarding more than a year later, the team now has 34 full-time team members and three new teammates who will be starting their Buffer bootcamp shortly. New team members Just this last month, Danny and Kat both graduated from Buffer’s bootcamp and have accepted to join us full time, hooray! In June, we also made four offers to candidates to

OpenJul 13, 2015
Buffer in June 2015: Fastest-Ever Team Growth, $6.6M ARR

We’re officially halfway through the year. Very excited to share the latest update for Buffer: Key metrics 2,511,292 total registered users (+3.2%) 206,464 monthly active users (+1.5%) 52,229 average daily active users (+6.2%) $550,529 monthly recurring revenue (+3.4%) $6.61m annual recurring revenue (+3.4%) $2,578,881 cash in bank 34 team members across the world 25 cities, 10 countries, 4 continents Here’s a graph of our MRR growth over the last 3.5 years: The change in trajectory around

OpenJul 10, 2015
Closing Down Buffer’s Suggestions Feature: Here’s Why and What’s Next

Being a part of a company that is run according to a specific set of values brings a great amount of clarity into everything we do at Buffer. Looking to our values becomes particularly important when there’s a challenging decision to make—for example, how to move forward with a feature that hasn’t yet found its fit. When we practiced this reflection with Buffer’s Suggestions feature recently, we decided that they’ve reached the end of their journey. Beginning August 1, we’ll start turning off

OpenJul 8, 2015
Kat Zien Has Joined Buffer As a Back-End Developer

I have some great news: We’re welcoming Kat Zien to the Buffer team as a back-end developer. Kat is based in Bristol and has been helping out with all things engineering, including some cool stuff with oAuth and retweet with comment (coming soon!). Here’s how she described her bootcamp experience: “I love the team and how helpful and friendly and positive everyone is! It makes me smile a lot throughout the day :) I wish I could spend all day reading the Open blog and so many personal blogs of

ResourcesJul 8, 2015
Got 60 Seconds? Learn Something New in These 25 Short & Sweet SlideShares About Social Media

Slide decks exist somewhere near the intersection of visual content and written content, a hybrid form of information and consumption perfect for bite-sized bits of learning. If you’ve not got time to read through a 2,000-word article, you might have a moment to flip through a SlideShare. We’ve been excited to experiment with the process of building slide decks around the Buffer content we have here on the blog, and in the course of doing so, we discovered a trove of wonderfully succinct and v

The 4 Biggest Pinterest Marketing Mistakes We Made (And How You Can Learn From Them)

I’m a bit embarrassed to share my early Pinterest Pins. But here they are anyway. A pin loaded with hashtags , a really odd-sized image , an image with a one-word description , a Pin with no description at all . I’ve made a lot of mistakes with Pinterest, both in the Pins I’ve created and in

AdvertisingJun 30, 2015
The 7 Hidden Factors of the Most Effective Social Media Ads

I’ve resisted social media advertising for a long time, believing that there are a host of free tools and free strategies that can help your business grow on social media organically. What I’ve come to find out (and I’d imagine many of you have discovered this already) is this: If you’re spending money to advertise online, social media ads may very well earn you the biggest returns. (In some cases, it’s the cheapest way to reach people.) There are so many inspiring digital marketers who are

Online MarketingJun 29, 2015
19+ Free Tools to Start Your Podcast From Scratch

Hey there, podcast fans! We recently launched a new podcast of our very own, Buffer CultureLab! We’d love for you to check it out and share any thoughts, feedback or ideas with us! You can listen on iTunes here or Google Play here. ? OK, now back to the post! “Slack is starting a podcast for some reason.” That was the headline of a recent Fortune.com article. Author Tom Huddleston, Jr. wondered why Slack, “a hot Silicon Valley company with a fast-growing valuation,” would “make the most of i

OverflowJun 26, 2015
We Built a Diversity Dashboard for Buffer; Here’s How You Can, Too

This post is co-written by Julian. At Buffer, we’re trying hard to be mindful of diversity within our team, as well as doing as much as we can to improve diversity of people in our industry. In an effort to understand diversity across our team as well as people who apply to work at Buffer, we started started collecting diversity data via questions in an anonymous survey. Once we had some data trickling in, we starting graphing some of the data and eventually decided to write a dashboard to sha

OpenJun 24, 2015
Building a More Inclusive Startup: Introducing the Diversity Dashboard

“What gets measured, gets managed.” This well-known quote is often applied to business situations like marketing or product creation. But the basic truth is applicable to almost any situation: When we really want to focus on something, we pay close attention. We want details that can help us make good decisions. And at Buffer, we want the details that can help us grow as an inclusive and diverse team. We want to be conscious of how we grow: With a focus on the values that guide us, and with a

Online MarketingJun 23, 2015
How to Choose the Right Stock Photo for Your Next Project

You’ve likely got a great way to search the web for the best free stock photos. And once you know where to look, how do you decide which photos to choose? Should you go with abstract or specific? What is the best color profile? What is the best orientation? There are so many great sources for free photos. I find myself asking these questions most every time I pick a photo—how to identify the right stock photo for a project. There’s a good bit of research and advice out there on how to make

Online MarketingJun 22, 2015
7 Top Marketing Podcasts and the Lessons They’ve Taught Me

Hey there, podcast fans! We recently launched a new podcast of our very own, Buffer CultureLab! We’d love for you to check it out and share any thoughts, feedback or ideas with us! You can listen on iTunes here or Google Play here. ? OK, now back to the post! As someone who’s motivated by self-improvement and achieving more, I’m constantly trying to learn as much as I can. Books are naturally one of my main go-to sources of knowledge. But there’s also a wealth of information to be consumed i

Online MarketingJun 18, 2015
Can You Run a Marketing Program With Zero Goals?

So much of marketing, it seems, is geared toward growth and traction, particularly when it comes to startups and technology. We are pressed on all sides by tracking metrics, pivoting, learning, and growing—a sort of exponential growth mindset that envelops, well, everything: content, social, email, community. If you haven’t measured it, then it doesn’t count. If you can’t measure it, you’re better off without it. We’re surrounded by this movement at Buffer, kind of like a stone is surrounded by

OpenJun 17, 2015
Why Not to Outsource your Startup (Even If You Can’t Code)

One of my favorite things to do is to help others who are at an earlier stage of the startup journey. I had a lot of false starts before Buffer. I enjoy sharing my lessons from those failed attempts, and I also enjoy getting my mind back into those early days challenges, now that Buffer is almost 5 years old. In the past few weeks, I’ve had 5 sessions (typically around 30 minutes, in person or via Hangouts) where I’ve tried to help someone. I was surprised to hear the same challenge came up in

Self-ImprovementJun 17, 2015
The Psychology of Selfies: Why We Love Taking and Viewing Photos of Faces

How many photos of you are on your phone right now? These days, humans take almost 1 trillion photos a year . (To put that into context, that’s more photos every few minutes than in the entire 19th century.) And lots of these photos are selfies—self-portraits, usually taken with a smartphone. As of this writing,

Tips / How ToJun 16, 2015
Social Media for Non-Profits: High-Impact Tips and the Best Free Tools

Whenever we have the chance to chat with folks about social media stats and marketing strategies , we are amazed at the many unique ways you all go about charting a path to social media success. Every industry and niche—every social profile, even—is unique. Non-profits are a great example of a segment of social media with its own unique elements and expectations. The non-profit structu