Blog - Page 84
A collection of 2,517 blog posts
I was blown away by a show I saw recently which included performances by acrobats and trapeze artists. The trapeze in particular was captivating to watch. It looked so joyful that I found myself wanting to find out how to have a go! I love to try new things; new experiences make life fun and interesting. And I’m incredibly lucky and proud to work for a company that values positivity, happiness and self-development . Every week we share w
June was a fantastic, fascinating month for customer happiness at Buffer as we made great strides toward meeting goals, expanded our awesome team, and pushed forward in a number of new, exciting areas. Stats June 2014 is the first month that I know of where we hit “inbox zero” at least once per day in both email and twitter. (We use Help Scout and Sparkcentral , respectively.) It feels great to be getting closer to the point where our customers do
I believe that when you’re building a startup, it is as much about developing yourself as it is about developing your startup. Recently I’ve realised that “feeling uncomfortable” is just what I need. Why is it a good thing to feel uncomfortable? Seth Godin describes why we should feel uncomfortable using the following chart: Godin argues that most people reach some comfortable “Local Max” and then stay there, because to jump to new heights almost always involves some discomfort: “The proble
Your online reputation is your reputation. And it better be good. The way you describe yourself on Twitter has everything to do with how people perceive you online. So how the heck do you do it right? In this post, we’ll go over the 7 key ingredients of a powerful Twitter bio–whether you’re a novice or a social media pro. But before we get into that, let’s first discuss the challenges of creating a Twitter bio. Get more clicks on Twitter by scheduling your posts for the ideal time. Get sta
We’ve been working hard at Buffer to launch new features and products, improve existing product areas and build out our internal tools to help us move faster than ever. This is our first product report of the year, and I’d love to explore everything going on behind the scenes at Buffer! What we launched: New product launches in June In June we had several major launches that are helping us to move the needle of Buffer’s growth. In the web app, we’ve begun curating new topics for content sugges
I sometimes find myself getting lost in a sea of marketing advice. There’s just so much out there. We produce four to five marketing posts on the Buffer blog every week, and we are just one of many sources of social media marketing advice. Multiply our handful of weekly posts with the countless blogs, tweets, updates, and emails, and the social media tips grow exponentially. How can a marketing idea or bit of advice stand out from the crowd? We’ve certainly been eager to experiment with answe
At any given time, I have a side project running. It’s often a new blog or a Tumblr or a book or a newsletter. Sometimes I try to design WordPress themes. Other times I try photography. This ethos of new projects and new improvements runs throughout our Buffer team. We love to find ways to grow, excel, and improve through side projects and hobbies. I have yet to create the next Uber or Gmail—million-dollar and million-user enterprises that began as side projects. The good news: You don’t have
When I choose someone new to follow, when I compose a new tweet, when I share and favorite an update, I seldom think about the why. My following sessions would probably seem haphazard to an outsider, and my favoriting technique comes and goes from one strategy to another. Even so, the way I use Twitter is far less random than I thought. There is science and psychology behind the way we all tweet. Researchers have discovered trends in the way that we perform every major action on Twitter—favori
Travel is a high priority for lots of us at Buffer—it’s a bit ingrained in our culture, and it’s always a great experience to see the world and broaden your geographic and cultural horizons. Travel is also the time where it can become a challenge to hang onto good routines, habits and improvement goals. With a number of Buffer team members on the move these past few weeks, it’s inspiring to see core habits that stay strong regardless of where in the world we are—and it’s fun to watch new goal
When you’ve got a great idea , share it. It might seem like counterintuitive advice, but that’s the philosophy that’s building Buffer: An emphasis on transparency and openness around almost everyt
No matter what you do in life, chances are good you’re reliant on some kind of a community. People to read your writing. Social sharers to spread your message and curate your content. Customers to review your products or services and tell their friends about you. Communities work because they’re built on relationships, and during the early stages of any new project, you need all the strong relationships you can get. The community you grow will be the source of your very first (and potentially
I’m thrilled to announce that Octavio Aburto has completed his 45-day Buffer Bootcamp and is joining us full-time as Buffer’s newest Happiness Hero! Hailing from Mexico, Octavio supports both our English- and Spanish-speaking customers. Adding another language to the list at Buffer has been a huge benefit, especially for the Happiness Team. Octa is our first Spanish-speaking hero, and he is also much more than that. :) Everything is a bit brighter with Octavio ref
I’m so pleased to announce that Nicole Miller has completed her 45-day Buffer Bootcamp and is joining us full-time as Buffer’s first Community Champion! When Nicole joined Buffer, a few things immediately changed. First, she started taking amazing care of our community, and Buffer stickers have now gone to all corners of the world. Second, the pet-to-human ratio at Buffer increased significantly. And third, she took Buffer’s handwriting-legibility average to n
I’ve had a few different experiences in my past that made me reach a big realisation. What I’ve discovered is that the context of any situation is very important. Hiten Shah clearly already understands this very well. This Tweet from him is what tipped me over the edge to share some of my further thinking around context: Get context before you give advice. — Hiten Shah (@hnshah) August 30, 2012 Why we should seek context at all times “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” –Steph
Do you measure the return on your social media investment? It seems blasphemous not to, yet that’s exactly the direction we’re experimenting with at Buffer. We’ve recently shifted our focus toward email list building along with continued traffic growth. These metrics are common enough; it’s what we’ve stopped measuring in lieu of email that is most unique and notable. We no longer focus on social media ROI. It’s strange but true. We’re a social media blog that does not emphasize social media
Not only do we strive for personal improvement every week at Buffer, those of us who work on the blog here get the opportunity to dig into the science of self-improvement in many different areas. Here are a few resources for improvements that might be on your list: • 6 Research-Tested Ways to Improve Your Memory • 8 Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine • 6 Ways I’ve Improved My Writing In the Past 6 Months • 8 Scientifically Proven Ways to Maximize Your Lunch Break • 6 Ways to Improve Your Will
Important update: We’re retiring the Daily app and Suggestions feature – beginning August 1, we’ll start turning off Suggestions in phases. Read more… Buffer’s mission has always been to do one thing really well: make it super easy to share great content. We think our web app and mobile app make it pretty easy to share, so what about the second part of our mission? How can you stock up on great articles and photos to share? Finding great content—the kind that moves you, makes you think, or st
I’m excited to share the details for Buffer’s progress in May. If you want to read our update from April, you can take a look here . I’ll keep it short this month, just wanted to give you an update on our latest progress. Traction update • New users: 60,000 (Total: 1,537,000, from 1,477,000: +4.1%) • Daily active users: 40,000 (last month also 40,000) • Monthly active users: 156,000 (down from 157,000: -0.6%) • Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): $283,00
Where do blog post ideas come from? This one came from someone else’s headline. We are constantly inspired by the amazing work of others, and we owe a lot to the deep thinking and amazing resources that are readily available within the industry. How can we get more ideas more consistently? There’s inspiration everywhere. We’ve just got to keep our eyes open. Copyblogger gave us the inspiration for this post. One of their recent headlines mentioned “idea curation,” a new-to-us term that really
How do you balance the necessity of highly secure passwords with the utility of easily recalling them all? It’s a question I mull each and every time a security breach happens. When the Heartbleed vulnerability was discovered last spring, the mandate was for everyone to change all their passwords right away. It’s still on my to-do list. I cringe at the thought of getting hacked, and I also cringe at the thought of taking the time and mental energy to do a complete overhaul of my favorite passwo
If you’ve been struggling with Facebook lately for your brand page, don’t think you’re alone. Between changes to the layout of brand pages, News Feed algorithm adjustments, and countless other tweaks and changes, marketers are constantly on their toes anticipating what’s coming next. A current issue that many are facing is the decline of a post’s organic reach. Marketers have had their organic reach cut by more than half with their Page’s published posts. This change is caused by a deeper und
Many people around me have a pretty good artistic side: Music, painting… they are crafters of all sorts, they can truly create things out of thin air! As for me? Well, I’m not a gifted artist. I shouldn’t be allowed to sing outside my shower and I still struggle to draw a smiley face. For a while, I thought the artistic road wasn’t something for me, period. Yet, the thing is, even though I can’t create very much, I still have pretty strong opinions about what I like. Curating creativity It
We love to make decisions and form strategies based on statistics. It’s why we A/B test and how we change directions on our social sharing. Who doesn’t love a good statistic, especially one that has an actionable next step? You’re likely to find a sea of statistics for social media—I know I’m amazed at how many are out there. My favorite finds are those that are just a bit surprising or unique or even counterintuitive. I’ve saved some of the best social media stats I’ve found over the past fe
During the journey of building Buffer, I’ve had some truly fantastic moments. I’ve reached some defining milestones. New doors have opened for me, and it has been great. Looking back to when I started Buffer, even though I had learned a lot from my past startup experiences, I truly didn’t know what I was doing and I approached everything with that mindset. I was out there to learn and I knew that the only way I was going to progress was to adopt a very open mind. I’m writing this post because