Resources - Page 19
A collection of posts on Resources
This post originally published on February 18, 2016. We’ve updated it here with the latest change to Twitter’s algorithm-based timeline. Over recent months, there has been a lot of debate about the future of Twitter. Growth has halted, share prices have fallen, and some are even saying #RIPTwitter. With all that in mind, the future of Twitter still feels extremely exciting, though. It feels like something big is afoot. And in order to kickstart growth and get people excited again, Twitter has
This week in #bufferchat, we were joined by Amanda Vera to explore B2B strategies for social media! We discussed how B2B social media marketing differs from B2C, the particular social media platforms that work well for B2B companies, what metrics are important to focus on, and so much more. Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, every week on Wednesdays, 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UTC, for valuable industry insights and networking with nearly 400 other smart marketers and community manage
Over 1.5 billion people regularly use Facebook. And as the social network has grown, the rate at which Facebook shares news, and releases new features and products has accelerated. It can be a little hard to keep up sometimes. With this in mind, I’d love to share 11 Facebook tips, tricks, and facts with you. This post will give you plenty of great stuff to help you get the most out of and better understand Facebook. From why you get shown certain ads and which types of posts get the most eng
Instagram has now released one of its most requested features. The ever-popular photo sharing app announced that following the release of version 7.15 for iOS and Android users will have the ability to switch between multiple accounts. This news is sure to make power users and social media managers jump with joy as managing multiple accounts for brands (or your pets) has been a time-consuming task up until now. Here’s a super-quick guide on how to add and manage multiple accounts on Instagram
The world of paid ads can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the game and wondering where to even start. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a nice and easy (and effective) way of dipping your toes in? I’m only a few months removed from this post exploring paid ads as a total noob, which I remain, and I’ve done my very best since to be a sponge for all the paid ads experiments and strategies I can find. We just so happened to come onto a neat one here at Buffer. It’s s
Awhile back, we were fortunate to try some neat email tactics that helped double our email list growth in just one month’s time. Then we stopped growing our list altogether. We shifted our learnings from growing an email list into growing Buffer signups. And we’ve yet to go back. Odd? Strange? Counterintuitive? Yep, probably all those things. Most online marketing advice today will advise you to build an email list, first and foremost. We aren’t. We’ve had the same amount of email subscribers
Facebook carousel ads are extremely engaging and fun way to promote your business. According to data collected by Kinetic Social, these ads can also drive up to 10 times more traffic to advertisers’ websites than static sponsored posts on Facebook. And LOVOO found that they got a 72%higher click-through rate versus single image mobile app ads. It feels clear these ads can be extremely effective, but how can you maximize their potential? In this post, we’ll walk through not just how to create a
What is the next big wave of social media? Maybe it’s Peach—or another hot new social network. Maybe it’s a strategy like posting times or text faces. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ It’s really hard to say! (And yet here I am saying it.) ? To ride the wave of the next big thing in social media, it often takes a lot of trial-and-error, a good deal of trendspotting, and some courage to try new things. I’ve spent some time reading up on what’s to come for social media and I’d love to get your thoughts on three n
“Could you pop into a quick morning standup, Ash?” “I’ll be there in a minute,” I’d reply. “I’m just finishing up a Facebook post.” As a community manager, most of my mornings would start along these lines. One of the toughest, and most time-consuming, tasks in community and social media management is finding a stream of high-quality, engaging content to share with your audience every day. A social media calendar is an excellent way to keep on top of this. But staring at a blank calendar can
If you’ve been on social media for any length of time, you may be well aware that images can help boost your online engagement. But while it’s true that a picture can add some pizazz to your posts, it’s not always easy to determine the best type of image to publish. They can also take a long time to create, especially when you’re not sure what you’re trying to communicate. Thankfully, deciding which format best suits your posts can be a straightforward process. In this post, I’ll outline a few
The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2015 was in fact not a word. It was the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji. This one ? You’ll no doubt recognise it – here’s how it looks across different platforms: This feels like a significant acknowledgement that the way a large number of us communicate is shifting. It’s no longer just teenagers or younger people who are using emoji’s, hashtags and neologisms – they’ve reached the mainstream. In this post, we dig a bit deeper into how ou
In the #bufferchat this week, Anil Dash shared his thoughts and insights about diversity and inclusivity in the tech world. We discussed how diversity impacts technology, how to work through challenges, and how we can foster a more diverse tech community. It was an hour of thoughtful conversation and idea sharing! Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, every week on Wednesdays, 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UTC, for valua
We talk about Social Media a lot! Everyone wants to be part of it, everyone tries to keep up with it and understand it, and everyone tries to find the latest tips and tricks to be better at it. But what is social media really like? How does it feel to be part of it? What if an alien came to earth and you had to explain social media and what it feels like to them, how would you do it? We have gathered 20 metaphors that we feel explain social media perfectly (okay, technically they are similes,
Every so often a new app will suddenly appear on App Store and get everyone talking. The latest app to do this is Peach – a new social networking app from Dom Hofmann, co-founder of video-based social network Vine. Peach is “a fun, simple way to keep up with friends and be yourself,” and has exploded onto the scene – breaking into the top #10 Social Networking apps in the App Store already (there’s currently no Android version). We decided to drive below the surface and investigate how Peach
The Internet is becoming increasingly cluttered. In 2005, we were reportedly exposed to over 3,500 brand messages per day. Nowadays, that figure is closer to 10,000 (if not already higher). 5.3 trillion display ads are shown online each year, 400 million Tweets sent daily, and 4.75 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every day. This relentless stream of content makes it harder than ever for your message to cut through the noise and get attention. And while there’s no secret formula
For years, there have been rumours flying around that Twitter would one day remove their 140 character limit. It appears that day could be close, as on Tuesday (January 5th, 2016), Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gave the biggest hint yet that this may become a reality. In his post Dorsey explains: “We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it.” (Dorsey’s post was shared in the form of a screenshot of some text). “In
Are you looking for a free, high-quality social media icon set to bring your website, content or maybe even business cards to life? Every individual and business has their own style and finding the perfect icon set to match can be tough – not to mention, very time-consuming. In this post, we’ve collected 50+ social media icons sets to help save you some time and find the perfect set of icons – no matter what your style! Let’s get right into it. 1. Iconmonstr Iconmonstr has become one of my f
Social networks are always making updates and tweaks to their platforms. And in a recent update, Twitter removed share counts from their Tweet buttons, affecting many bloggers and publishers. As some data has started to emerge on how the has change affected content sharing on Twitter, we wanted to dive below the surface of this update and see how this change could affect marketers. Let’s get started. Meet Twitter’s new share buttons Like other recent Twitter changes, this one appears mostl
How important is customer service via social media? According to J.D. Power, 67% of consumers have used a company’s social media channel for customer service. And when they do, they expect a fast response. Research cited by Jay Baer tells us that 42% of consumers expect a response with 60 minutes. So, how’s your social media customer service? For this post I was excited to research a set of 14 amazing examples of customer service using social media. Let’s get started! 1. Samsung: A Unicyc
There’s often a critical time (or two) in a business’s journey when it’s make or break and time is at a premium. There’re often times beyond this, once a brand is established, where time is still scarce and efficiency is the name of the game. The team at Smart Pension has felt both sides of this in the past couple years and has experienced the time crunch particularly on the social media side (sound familiar at all with your experience?). One of the UK’s leading pension companies, the Smart Pe
We’ve talked about how important of a tool video is becoming for marketers. Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube, Facebook has 8 billion daily video views and Snapchat users watch 6 billion videos daily. Video views are growing so fast that if you don’t jump in now, you might miss out on one of the biggest opportunities for you and/or your company. And that’s why I wanted to talk about Twitter video, which is something not a lot of marketers have embraced yet! Let’
I am no good at a lot of social media things … which is a bit tough to admit as a social media marketer! I don’t use a smartphone. I’m scared of Snapchat. I’m not entirely sure what WhatsApp does. I can think of 50 social media things (and probably more) where I could improve. The things I am good at—mostly the things that Buffer helps me with, like scheduling, consistency, stats, analysis—make for a solid foundation, and I’m keen to make strides on the rest. Step one: Admitting ’em all! I h
How much time do you spend creating a social media image? Two minutes? Twenty minutes? An hour or more? I’ve done it all! I’ve been down those rabbit holes when you suddenly realize that you’ve been searching for the perfect picture or agonizing over the best font for forty-five minutes (yikes!). We know that social images are important but they can also be really time consuming. That’s why we created Pablo [h
The Seattle Times—and many publishers like them—is in an interesting place. There’s zero difficulty in coming up with outstanding, high-quality content to share. The opposite problem is the case: Of the 160+ stories the Times publishes every day, which ones warrant a share on social media, where there are only two dozen or so slots to go around? Beyond the publisher-specific quirks of content, The Seattle Times is also solving puzzles that face any number of social media marketers, no matter