9 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Using Buffer – Minisode [SSM043]

May 8, 2017 6 min readResources

Social media offers a huge opportunity for you to reach and connect with people in creative ways.

Via great content. Hilarious cat GIFs. Amazing brand stories.

But sometimes it can be a challenge to find the time or the right tools to build a successful social media program that works both short and long-term.

We know the feeling!

That’s why we’re super excited to share a brand new Minisode with you all about how you can utilize Buffer to get the most out of your social media marketing.

These Minisodes offer a fun change of pace from our traditional long-form episodes on The Science of Social Media. Hosts Hailley & Brian share 10 social media marketing tips in 10 minutes or less on a variety of relevant and useful topics. By the end of each Minisode, you’ll have tons of new ideas that you can implement today to help make your marketing and social media more effective.

A huge thank you to all of you for joining us every week! We appreciate you taking the time to listen and for your amazing support over the last few months. We’d love to hear from you on iTunes or using the hashtag #bufferpodcast on Twitter.

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

This episode is available on:

Here’s what we chat about in this episode:

Using Buffer to get the most out of every single social media post
How to save time using some of Buffer’s most powerful features
Hidden and useful Buffer features that you may not know
Why all 10 features will help you get more out of your social media efforts
Scheduling, Chrome Extension, user-generated content, and more!

If you’d like to check out an in-depth dive into 8 of Buffer’s most powerful social media marketing features, our post “8 Powerful Buffer Features to Help You Use Buffer to the Fullest” is a great resource.

In the meantime, we’d love to provide a quick overview of all of the awesome social media strategies and tactics that we chat about in this brand new Minisode. We hope you enjoy and would love to hear some of your favorite ways to use Buffer in the comments!

To help make sure that your content stays fresh and reaches the maximum amount of people on social media, we recommend using a different copy for each network.

Using specific hashtags that work best on each network is a great example of this as well as experimenting with various lengths, wording, and copy style for each network.

One of my absolute favorite Buffer tools/features is our Instagram integration on the Buffer app for both iOS and Android. It’s great for sharing user-generated content from your community, building a beautiful Instagram profile, and driving growth to your account.

3. Track your analytics and do more of what works

One awesome way to save time and get the most of the content that you’ve worked hard to create is to share evergreen content more than once across social media.

Tracking our best-performing content with Buffer Analyze and repurposing it in new and interesting ways is one of my favorite ways to use Buffer to increase engagement on social media. It’s a great way to experiment with evergreen posts as well as see what your audience is responding to best over time.

4. Experiment with different posting schedules within Buffer

Experimenting with various times and days for your social media content will ensure that you’re always testing content within changing social media algorithms.

As a Publish Free plan user, you’re able to create one custom schedule per platform which will help you optimize timing as a whole. As a Publish Pro plan or Business plan user, you can create as many schedules as you’d like for each profile: a schedule for weekdays, one for weekends; one for Mondays, one for Tuesdays; one for go-to times, one for experiments.

This will ensure that each of your posts will be sent out at the perfect time, every day.

Social Media Scheduling Feature - Buffer

5. Easily post your favorite content with the Buffer Chrome Extension

You’re browsing the web and you come across a fantastic article that you know your audience would love…

What do you do?

This time around, instead of going directly to a social network to copy/paste a link or opening up the Buffer app to schedule like you normally would, give the Buffer extension a try! It’s free, it and it works immediately from any page you’re on. Bonus: Browser extensions are one of our favorite productivity hacks at Buffer.

6. Post directly to Facebook Groups

A few months back, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook Note titled, “Building a Global Community” where he laid out his vision for Facebook in the future. And part of that vision was highlighting the importance of continuing to build human interaction online through the use of groups.

Facebook Groups have exploded in usage over the past several years and will only continue to do so in the future. Now is a great time to jump aboard!

7. Increase engagement with videos and GIFs

Video marketing has taken the social media world by storm. A look at one of any number of video growth statistics and it’s clear to see why so many marketers are jumping aboard this trend!

People watch more than 100 million hours of video on Facebook
YouTube brings in nearly 4,950,000,000 video views daily
Snapchat alone fuels more than 10 billion video views every single day!

Buffer integrates with videos and GIFs on almost every social media network and so using our platform to schedule content ahead of time is a great way to create consistency and increase engagement.

8. Add “contributors” to your Buffer Publish account

If you have a team or you’re looking to get more people directly involved with social media at your company, the Buffer Publish “contributor” feature is a great way to open up new content possibilities.

Last year we experimented with adding all of the Buffer employees as contributors to my profile so that I could add new Guide to Getting Started as a Team Member will help kick off some experiments of your own!

9. Go mobile with the Buffer app for iOS and Android

By far, my favorite feature and tool is our Buffer app for both iOS and Android. Being able to easily manage, schedule, and analyze posts on the go has been a game-changer for us on social media.

Buffer integrates with more than 400 of your favorite apps and tools – making it super easy to schedule and share your favorite content from the web.

Our app works alongside tools like Feedly, Flipboard, IFTTT, Pocket, Digg, Nuzzle, Zapier, and so many more!

Show Notes and Other Memorable Moments

Thanks a million for checking out this Minisode! Below are the websites and other tidbits that were mentioned in today’s podcast about personal branding on social media. If you have any questions for us, feel free to drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond right away!

Awesome Mentions in the Show

Buffer – A Smarter Way to Share on Social Media
Buffer for Business

How to Say Hello to Us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

Buffer on Twitter
Buffer on Facebook
Buffer on Instagram
Hailley on Twitter
Brian on Twitter

Thanks for listening! We’d love to connect with you on social media using the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a

rating and review on iTunes

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About the Show

The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and social media managers looking for inspiration, ideas, and results for their social media strategies. Each week, we chat about some of the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies with brands and marketers in every industry.

Think of it like a sandbox for social media experimentation!

You’ll learn the latest tactics on social media, the best tools to use, the smartest workflows, and the best goal-setting advice. It is our hope that each episode you’ll find one or two gems to use with your social media marketing.